Libertarian BS About The Great Society Subsidizing Poverty

from 1963 when Lyndon Johnson took office until 1970 as the impact of his Great Society programs were felt, the portion of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent, the most dramatic decline over such a brief period in this century ~ Joseph A. Califano Jr. (dob 5/15/1931) Special Assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson (7/26/1965 to 1/20/1969).

If there is one thing that Libertarians absolutely can not stand it is the idea that government can be a force to affect positive economic or societal change. Fact is, Libertarians strongly believe that government can't do anything right. One of their favorite pastimes is running down government and heaping praise on the so-called "free market". It's the answer to all our problems, doncha know?

If they aren't demonizing government, an institution that represents The People and works on their behalf (in so far as they haven't been bribed by the wealthy elites), then Libertarians are demonizing poor people; and the demonization of both is exemplified in this recent post by a Libertarian blog I check in from time to time.

Libertarian blogger: The poverty rate was coming down precipitously in this country and for the most part people weren't having children out of wedlock, and then came the Great Society. Thank you so much, the political class. ...this is one hell of a strong correlation and you know, YOU KNOW, that if the trend-lines had been plotted out in the opposite direction the left would have been singing and dancing that it was some sort of proof-positive that the Great Society was effective. And the fact that it makes such total fucking sense. Of course when you subsidize something you're going to get more of it. Hello! (11/12/2013 AT 7:43pm).

The poverty rate was coming down because our economy was growing due to industrialization and continuing innovation, for which, yes, we can thank the so-called "free market". But the reason EVERYONE benefited is because of the existence of unions; organizations that allowed workers to bargain for their share of the wealth. According to Mr. Libertarian Blogger (Mr. LB) Democrats can't blame Reagan, but it was Reagan who kicked off his presidency by declaring a war on working people, as Liberal Talker Thom Hartmann points out in his 2006 book Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class...

Thom Hartmann: We can easily trace decline [of unionization] to Reagan's first public declaration of war on the middle class when he went after the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) in 1981. He broke the back of the air-traffic controllers' union and began the practice of using the Department of Labor - traditionally the ally of workers - against organized labor and working people. (Excerpt from Thom's book reprinted by Alternet, 9/5/2006).

If you look at the graph Mr. LB includes with his post to "prove" that LBJ's war on poverty actually subsidized poverty and therefore increased it, you will get the impression that the Great Society didn't have much of an impact, but that is because the graph covers such a large period of time (1940-2010) and all the programs that comprised the Great Society were not actually fully in effect for very long, as noted by Wikipedia...

Wikipedia/The Great Society/The War On Poverty: The War on Poverty [began with] the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which created the OEO to oversee a variety of community-based antipoverty programs. ... The OEO was dismantled by the Nixon and Ford administrations, largely by transferring poverty programs to other government departments. Funding for many of these programs were further cut in President Ronald Reagan's first budget in 1981.

Mr. Libertarian Blogger is criticizing a program that began in 1964 and for which the dismantling commenced only 5 years later (under Nixon who assumed office in 1969)? And, then there is the fact that Johnson got us involved in the Vietnam war the previous year (1963) and "Anti-war Democrats complained that spending on the Vietnam War choked off the Great Society". So, the programs were under-funded due to money spend on the Vietnam conflict, which brings us to what the actual criticism should be... a criticism the Lefty publication The Nation notes was levied by Martin Luther King...

Mark Engler, writing for The Nation: King criticized Johnson's War on Poverty for being too piecemeal. While housing programs, job training and family counseling were not themselves unsound, he wrote that "all have a fatal disadvantage. The programs have never proceeded on a coordinated basis... At no time has a total, coordinated and fully adequate program been conceived". (Dr. Martin Luther King's Economics: Through Jobs, Freedom 1/15/2010).

The obvious conclusion is that the Great Society didn't do enough and it didn't do it long enough. Mr. LB did not present "one hell of a strong correlation" that the Great Society caused poverty to increase, as the short while that it was in place it did have an effect (as Joseph A. Califano Jr. points out in the quote at the top of my post).

As for the graph and conclusion drawn from it by Mr. LB that out-of-wedlock births have increased (again) due to the Great Society... this is a simple-minded conclusion (the kind of conclusions Conservatives and Libertarians excel at). The Brookings Institute analyzed the data, and their conclusion was that out-of-wedlock births in the United States increased due to "technology shock".

The researchers lay out their hypothesis as follows...

Brookings: In the late 1960s and very early 1970s (well before Roe v. Wade in January 1973) many major states, including NY and CA, liberalized their abortion laws. At about the same time it became easier for unmarried people to obtain contraceptives. ... We have found that this rather sudden increase in the availability of both abortion and contraception [caused] reproductive technology shock... In our view, it was the technology shock itself that, by eroding the age-old custom of shotgun marriage, paradoxically raised out-of-wedlock birth rates instead of lowering them. (An Analysis of Out-Of-Wedlock Births in the United States by George A. Akerlof and Janet L. Yellen of Brookings, 8/1996).

Why? Brookings concludes that...

Brookings: Women who were willing to get an abortion or who reliably used contraception no longer found it necessary to condition sexual relations on a promise of marriage in the event of pregnancy. But women who wanted children, who did not want an abortion for moral or religious reasons, or who were unreliable in their use of contraception found themselves pressured to participate in premarital sexual relations without being able to exact a promise of marriage in case of pregnancy. (same credit as previous quote).

Thus out of wedlock births increased. Granted, this explanation is a little more complicated and nuanced than the one put forward by Libertarians and Conservatives who think like Mr. LB. It makes sense to me, in any case. More so than the notion that poor people prefer to live in poverty, so long as they're getting welfare from the government... and a poor woman will have kids out of wedlock on purpose just to get more bennies. Regarding that argument Brookings said...

Brookings: One argument that appeals to conservatives is that of Charles Murray, who attributes the increase to overly generous federal welfare benefits. But... welfare benefits could not have played a major role in the rise of out-of-wedlock births because benefits rose sharply in the 1960s and then fell in the 1970s and 1980s, when out-of-wedlock births rose most. (same credit as previous Brookings excerpt).

However, as I pointed out earlier, demonizing the poor is something Libertarians and Conservatives excel at. If you say the government can't help the poor (and in fact it makes poverty worse) then no money need be spent on these types of programs. There is therefore no need to tax the wealthy to help the less fortunate (as it only harms them). And, let us not forget that it's their own fault for being lazy and preferring to lie back in the social safety net hammock instead of working hard to get ahead.

But most people do not prefer to only get by. Most people do work hard but simply can't get ahead... as the plutocrats are taking more and more, which is easier for them to do since Reagan and his war on unions. It certainly is no coincidence that Libertarians and Conservatives also hate unions, as unions allow workers to bargain for higher wages. Also, it is no coincidence that Libertarians and Conservatives love free trade, as that also drives down wages for working folks. Hello!

SWTD #218, wDel #41.

Clueless Ayn Rand Worshiping Objectivist Concerned About Wealth Inequality Doesn't Realize His Ideology Fosters It

Oh, for an honest Libertarian who would say "Yes, in Libertopia we'd have rampant quackery, organ-seizure, baby-selling, slavery in all but name - BUT THAT'S FREEDOM! ~ Seth Finkelstein, programmer and author who writes for The Guardian.

The video at the bottom of this commentary was recently included in a post about wealth inequality in the United States on the ironically titled blog "rAtional nAtion uSA". The proprietor of this blog, Lester Nation, is an individual who believes in the greed rationalizing ideology of Ayn Rand. Given that, his including of this video in his post proves just how clueless this guy is when it comes to the end game the plutocrats who endorse Libertarianism (like the Koch Brothers) desire.

The endgame of the plutocrats; the entire goal of pushing Libertarianism and Randism on our nation is to further enrich themselves and impoverish everyone else. This is a zero-sum game and when the rich get richer we all get poorer. It doesn't have to be, but the way Libertarians play the game it is. If they were willing to pay their workers more those workers would spend that money into the economy, thus increasing demand and benefiting the "job creators". Instead they seek to pay the workers as little as possible, thus decreasing demand.

Libertarians say economics isn't a zero-sum game, but that is only true when the economy is growing. The economy only grows when the workers have money to spend; which generates demand; which grows the economy. Problem is, when the corportist and CEO class seeks to increase their wealth by paying workers less and less, this causes the economy to contract (workers have less money to spend) and then the game is zero sum (the workers can't spend unless they borrow against the equity in their home, use their credit cards, or otherwise go into debt). For the plutocrats to win the workers must lose, which they have been over the past 40 years, ever since this country adopted Reaganomics (also known as "trickle down").

But Libertarians (the true believers like Lester) fail to realize this. They think that if government simply gets out of the way the wealthy elites will (unrestrained) be able to make more money and that money will trickle down to everyone else (those who work hard). This, despite the fact that the employers seek to pay as little as possible and, without government "restraining" them, they will engage in practices that drive down wages to an even greater extent... insourcing, outsourcing (using cheap overseas labor and then importing the goods sans tariffs), anti-unionism, etc.

Question is, for how long with the citizens tolerate this inequality before they demand change? And what kind of change will they demand? That really concerns Lester. He articulates these fears in a comment to his own post as follows...

rAtional nAtion: How this is going to shake out is uncertain. But my money rests on serious social unrest, a serious depression, and the results will be exactly what Capitalists have railed against for years. MORE GOVERNMENT CONTROL and HIGHER TAXES. (10/22/2013 AT 4:56pm).

All I can say to that is... amen, Lester. I pray you are right, but I also pray the middle class isn't decimated before we reach a breaking point. BTW, by "more government control" Lester refers to more democracy. Libertarians hate democracy, as they foolishly believe the "free market" should rule, not "we the people". Me, I'm a Progressive who believes in democracy and believe that "more government control" equates to our elected representatives doing more of what we want. And, of course taxes aren't high enough (FactCheck.org and PolitiFact both confirm that taxes are at a historical low).

I think Lester is right, but unlike him I don't fear the results he predicts. I am not looking forward to a possible depression, but if the people wake up and demand more democracy, higher taxes and other economic policies that will rebuild the middle class I'd be on board with that 100 percent.

According to Thomas Jefferson, "those seeking profits, were they given total freedom, would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights secure". The "free market", in other words, will destroy rights in order to gain more profit... and reduce the rest of us to paupers (or vassals). A country with a large and vibrant middle class, as pointed out by Progressive talker Thom Hartmann, is not natural.

When the plutocrats rule (as the Libertarians desire) the end result is a small number of uber wealthy rulers, an equally small middle class, and a large number of working poor. "We the people" via our elected officials must create and enforce legislation and economic policies to foster and enable the existence of a middle class... this would be the government that Libertarians and Randians like Lester Nation fear and despise. These foolish individuals fail to recognize the wisdom in Jefferson's words because they have been thoroughly duped by the plutocrats.

Video Description: Video posted on the rAtional nAtion uSA blog to complement a 10/22/2013 post by the proprietor titled "The Great American Income Shift". The video points out just how much more money the wealthy have than the rest of us (and that the inequality is significantly more than most Americans think)...

Further Reading
[1] Libertarianism Makes You Stupid by Seth Finkelstein, August 1997.
[2] Garbage and Gravitas... Ayn Rand was a melodramatist of the moral life: the battle is between the producer and the moochers, and it must end in life or death by Corey Robin, The Nation 5/20/2010.

SWTD #217, lDel #11.

Billionaires Kill Volume 1

The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults. We have been blinded to the depravity of our ruling elite by the relentless propaganda of public relations firms that work on behalf of corporations and the rich. Compliant politicians, clueless entertainers and our vapid, corporate-funded popular culture, which holds up the rich as leaders to emulate and assures us that through diligence and hard work we can join them, keep us from seeing the truth ~ Chris Hedges (dob 9/18/1956) an American journalist and best-selling author specializing in American politics and society. With this quote from his 10/20/2013 commentary "Let's Get This Class War Started" Hedges warns us that we aren't taking the danger posed by billionaires seriously.

Recently I read a commentary on a Libertarian blog where the proprietor and author asked "whether having multiple billionaires in a Society is desirable or not". He added some caveats, but basically the answer was yes, billionaires are beneficial. In regards to this conclusion I am in strong disagreement. Progressive talk radio host Thom Hartmann wrote an article about this awhile back, and his conclusion was that we (as a society) should not allow anyone to accumulate a billion dollars (or more).

Thom codified his proposal by launching the "No Billionaires" campaign and website. As proposed by Mr. Hartmann, when anyone accumulates WEALTH (in aggregate, he isn't referring to income) in excess of a billion dollars, a wealth tax of 100% should be assessed. While that may sound extreme and I'm sure the aforementioned Libertarian blogger would label me "Far Left" in response, I say Thom Hartmann's case against billionaires makes sense and is something I would support.

Regarding why I would support a tax that amounts to confiscation (oh, my!), I'd like to address that question with four quotes from the aforementioned Libertarian blogger and follow up these selected quotations with excerpts from the articled authored by Thom Hartmann in which he lays out his case. As follows...

1. Libertarian Blogger: In and of itself it's a meaningless question (the question of whether or not billionaires are desirable). You would also have to known, in my opinion, a) the overall size of the economy, b) the growth rate, c) the opportunity structure, d) the regulatory climate, e) the amount of crony capitalism involved...

My Commentary: No, you don't need to address those questions before deciding whether or not billionaires are desirable. They are not, whatever the answers to those questions might be. The reason they are not is that, when money is allowed to aggregate in the hands of a few the result is ALWAYS that those few (or some among them... example: The Koch Brothers) use their wealth to manipulate public discussion, public opinion and our legislators (via campaign donations AKA bribes). Wealth aggregated in a few hands breeds political corruption (the bribes I just mentioned). Mr. Hartmann points this out with the following (excerpt from his article)...

Thom Hartmann: We've been given political corruption as billionaires like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Brothers can now buy politicians and legislation to benefit their own selfish interests like tax cuts for wealthy people, deregulation for polluting oil corporations, and free trade for job outsourcers.

2. Libertarian Blogger: I mean, I know that the left de facto wants me to say that billionaires are evil and all but I would simply point out that Cuba, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, and Indonesia don't have any billionaires and do we really want to emulate them?

My Commentary: Untrue. The Left does not want YOU (or anyone representing your Libertarian/Conservative) position to "de facto" say billionaires are "evil". This "evil" nonsense is a strawman the Right likes to break out whenever this question comes up. Selfishness may indeed be evil, but that is not what is at issue. The real question is whether or not having billionaires is beneficial to society. Also, the reason some countries are poor has nothing to do with them having or not having billionaires and we don't need to emulate any poor country to not have billionaires (this is another strawman).

Mr. Hartmann gets it...

Thom Hartmann: The issue is not punishing the wealthy. The issue is acknowledging that billionaires have sucked up so much wealth out of our economy that the rest of us are drowning. What's worse is the rest of us are working harder than ever. Productivity has steadily increased post-World War 2, and it used to be that income gains increased right alongside it. But around the time of Reagan, productivity and wages began to diverge. While productivity increased, wages stagnated. That's because all the extra profits made by increased productivity weren't given back to the workers, but instead pocketed by CEOs and executives.

3. Libertarian Blogger: You would also have to know... what the billionaires do with the money (do they waste it on politics or are they philanthropic?).

Thom Hartmann: Our nation does not thrive on the goodwill of billionaires. We thrive on the hard work of average Americans who wake up every day, go to work, care for their families, and raise children to believe that America is a "WE" society - a place where we all work together. Not a place where we wait for scraps to fall off the billionaires' dining table.

My Commentary: The Libertarian blogger has posted on the awesomeness of billionaire philanthropy before, but I'm with Thom Hartmann on this. Whether or not billionaires are philanthropic is not at issue. OVERALL the existence of billionaires is destructive, as Mr. Hartmann explains in his article...

Thom Hartmann: We've been given financial instability as billionaires, having more money than they can spend in a dozen lifetimes, go to Wall Street to gamble. As author Larry Beinhart has discovered, whenever tax rates drop below 50% - and the super-rich have a lot of hot money to play with - there are always subsequent economic crashes: It happened in the 1920s, it happened in the 1980s with the Savings and Loan crisis, and it happened just a few years ago with the housing bubble bursting.

My Commentary: An example of how the existence of billionaires is destructive would include the crony capitalism mentioned by the Libertarian blogger. It is CAUSED by billionaires spending money to influence our political system. The two go hand-in-hand (billionaires and crony capitalism). This is a fact Mr. LB is clearly oblivious to. Another harm billionaires visit on our economy is the crowding out (and outright targeting) of small business...

Thom Hartmann: We've been given gigantic transnational corporations - steered by billionaires - that can crush the competition of small business and kill the American entrepreneurial spirit. According to a newly released study by the New America Foundation, the number of entrepreneurs per capita in America has dropped by 53% since 1977. And since 1991, the number of Americans who are self-employed has dropped by more than 20%. Americans who use to be able to start their own businesses are increasingly being forced to join the ranks of the working poor - crowded out of the market by the billionaires' corporate domination.

4. Libertarian Blogger: Thankfully, the economy isn't a zero-sum game. (This is actually a comment Mr. LB makes to his own post).

My Commentary: Up to a certain point this is true, but the way the billionaires have been playing the game, it is NOT... as pointed out by Mr. Hartmann...

Thom Hartmann: ...the rest of us are working harder than ever. Productivity has steadily increased post-World War 2, and it used to be that income gains increased right alongside it. But around the time of Reagan, productivity and wages began to diverge. While productivity increased, wages stagnated. That's because all the extra profits made by increased productivity weren't given back to the workers, but instead pocketed by CEOs and executives. In other words, we're all working harder, but unfortunately by no will of our own have been forced to give up these fruits of our labor to the elites - to the billionaires whose wealth has exploded and continues to increase year after year.

My Commentary: Is Mr. LB completely unaware of the fact that income and productivity gains used to track each other and they no longer are? This is the very definition of zero-sum, Mr. LB! In another commentary on his blog Mr. LB says "the assertion that the rich are getting richer is a patently false one" and he "proves" his assertion by citing figures concerning the percentage of wealth held by the top 1%, a figure that does fluctuate and is currently lower than it has been in the past (in 1992 the top 1% held 37.2% of our nation's wealth and in 2010 they held 35.4%).

But this is yet another of Mr. LB's strawmen! There are a lot of people who qualify as rich who aren't members of the 1% club. As a whole the rich (not just the 1%, Mr. LB) ARE getting richer. According to a 4/25/2013 article titled "It's Official: The Rich Are Getting Richer And Everyone Else Is Getting Hosed" from the Business Insider (an article that cites a Pew Research Center study that "looked at how American households have fared since the depths of the recession")...

Business Insider: The richest 7% of American households went from owning 56% of the country's net worth to owning 63% of it. That left only 37% of the country's net worth to everyone else. (article by Henry Blodget).

Proof positive that the rich are getting richer. Now, Mr. LB loves to defend the wealthy and use strawmen to do it, but the aggregation of enormous sums of money *is* destructive and deleterious to our economy and our nation, no matter how you slice it. It is bad regardless of what the answers to the meaningless questions Mr. LB asks...

Thom Hartmann: ...our subservience to the billionaires has given us a perverse form of capitalism - corporate capitalism - which subjugates all the needs of our society like clean air, food and water, security, healthcare, education, retirement, and energy to the demands of quarterly profits. To the demands of billionaires who sit in corporate boardrooms and figure out what extra bit of profit they can squeeze out of their workers, out of the fracking wells, out of the Gulf of Mexico, out of bombs dropping on Afghanistan, out of healthcare premiums, and out of pensions and retirements. As Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges has routinely pointed out, corporate capitalism, if left unchecked, will kill us.

My Commentary: Yes, corporate capitalism brought to us by the existence of billionaires is killing us. Unless we want to die (economically as well as literally) we need to rein them in. Or, as Thom Hartmann concludes, "the way to put a check on it (the destructive power of the billionaires) ...is to cut off the spigot funneling what was once middle class wealth to the billionaires".

See also: The Billionaires' Long Game by Robert Reich, 12/11/2012.

SWTD #216, wDel #40.

Laffering At Historically Inaccurate Suggestion That Raising Taxes Caused The Great Depression

Art Laffer's claim that low state tax rates are the key to economic growth. What should you think about that claim? That's easy: it's junk economics ~ Paul Krugman (dob 2/28/1953) an American economist, Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times.

What caused the Great Depression? Recently I read an historically inaccurate assertion that it was a tax increase under President Hoover that is to blame; argument as follows...

Libertarian Blogger: The Keynes Curve? ...taxation may be so high as to defeat it's object, and that, given the sufficient time to gather the fruits, a reduction of taxation will run a better chance than an increase of balancing the budget [Quote from] John Maynard Keynes. Gee, I wonder if he said this before or after Hoover raised taxes 152% and plunged a recovering U.S. economy into a depression. (10/12/2013 AT 9:41am).

Uh, no. The Libertarian blogger I quote above is referring to something that didn't happen. The tax increase under Hoover happened (although I'm not sure where this 152% comes from), but this increase was NOT what caused the Great Depression. The Great Depression was caused by a previous lowering of taxes. Apparently Mr. LB has never heard of the roaring twenties? That was the bubble created by taxes that were too low. It was the bursting of that bubble that caused the great depression, NOT any tax raising by Hoover, as pointed out by the nation's top Progressive Talker...

Thom Hartmann: ...the massive Republican tax cuts of the 1920s (from 73 to 25 percent) led directly to the Roaring Twenties' real estate and stock market bubbles, a temporary boom, and then the crash and Republican Great Depression that started in 1929. (Excerpt from the book Rebooting the American Dream, pub. 2011).

According to Mr. Hartmann the way to prevent bubbles and busts is to keep the top marginal tax rate at 50 percent or higher. History shows us that when Republican administrations (or Dems acting like Republicans) come in with an agenda of cutting taxes, those tax cuts invariably lead to bubbles, like when the bush administration rammed through a tax cut that favored the wealthy via reconciliation in 2003. Regarding that tax cut, Harlan Green of Popular Economics says...

Harlan Green: The Bush tax cuts are the most current example; in fact they helped to cause the Great Recession. For much of the excess profits were spent on market speculation - especially in subprime loans and payday lending to the poorest among us - that caused the housing bubble. (Article: What Happened to the Bush Tax Cuts? Huff Post Business, 06/04/2012).

(Note: Harlan Green has a degree in Economics from UC Berkeley and is the editor and publisher of PopularEconomics.com).

As for Mr. LB's quote from Keynes and his suggestion that he would agree with the Laffer Curve... [1] I'm sure there would be a disagreement between the two regarding what constituted how high taxes would have to be to qualify as "so high", and [2] Laffer and Keynes were both wrong. The Laffer Curve has been debunked.

The Middle Class Economist says "Laffer got it exactly backward, with tax revenue initially falling as tax rates increase, then rising after a further increase in rates". The quoted blog post further notes that Sweden in the 1970s had a top marginal rate of over 100 percent, and their tax revenues went up, not down.

The lesson to be learned from this is that it is tax cuts that lead to bubbles that causes recessions, NOT tax increases. In fact it is a marginal tax rate over 50 percent that stabilizes the economy and prevents bubbles and busts from occurring (or causes them to be less severe if they do occur). That there are some who still argue otherwise makes it clear that no matter how many times we bubble and bust we may never learn. Why? Because the wealthy and their stooges will continually argue the exact opposite of the truth.

The reason being that the wealthy always make out like bandits while the rest of us suffer. A 9/11/2013 LA Times article notes...

Connie Stewart of the LA Times: The Great Recession hit the top 1% harder than other income groups, but the wealthy recovered quicker too. From 2009 to 2012, as the U.S. economy improved, incomes of the top 1% grew more than 31%, while the incomes of the 99% grew 0.4% - less than half a percentage point. (9/11/2013).

Time to adopt the budget of the Progressive caucus that eliminates the deficit and Raises a $31 billion surplus in ten years. Enough of this failed trickle down economic BS (of which the Laffer Curve nonsense is a component).

SWTD #210, wDel #37.

Brookings' Intellectually Honest Analysis Of Romney's Tax Proposals Got Me Banned

Romney says he is going to balance the budget, cut taxes, raise defense, protect Medicare, and preserve all the institutions of the federal government that we need from the FBI to the FAA. You can't possibly do all of those things. That was my problem. How does the math add up? To me, he's still at war with math ~ Tom Friedman (b. 7/20/1953) NYT columnist and self-identified Republican, on the 9/2/2012 broadcast of BC's Meet the Press.

Preface 1: This is a old post. I originally intended to publish it in September of 2012, but never got around to finishing it. I wrote most of it, but never actually completed it for some reason. I was recently looking for things to delete from my computer and found this... and decided to dust it off, finish it, and publish it. Why? Because it explains MY SIDE of a debate that lead to me being banned from the blog Contra O'Reilly.

I've authored a number of highly critical posts over the last few months that take aim at the proprietor of that blog, a Mr. Willis L. Hart (who I refer to as "PA" below). This post explains why. He banned me over a stoopid disagreement over former presidential contender Mitt Romney's tax plan (a plan that was never explained in detail, therefore making assumptions necessary if anyone wished to critique it).

Preface 2: What follows is my original post which my records say I intended to publish on 9/1/2012...

According to Wikipedia Harvard ethicist Louis M. Guenin describes the "kernel" of intellectual honesty to be "a virtuous disposition to eschew deception when given an incentive for deception".

Definition-wise, Wikipedia states that Intellectual Honesty is: [1] One's personal beliefs do not interfere with the pursuit of truth. [2] Relevant facts and information are not purposefully omitted even when such things may contradict one's hypothesis. [3] Facts are presented in an unbiased manner, and not twisted to give misleading impressions or to support one view over another. [4] References are acknowledged where possible, and plagiarism is avoided.

Regarding "Intellectual Honesty", I certainly do not try, nor have I ever tried to deceive with any of my posts, although I'm not going to claim that my personal beliefs never interfere with the pursuit of truth. They do. Facts here will sometimes be presented in a "biased" manner... from my Democrat-Liberal-Progressive point of view, that is. That is my bias. I don't deny it, but I do deny that I am the most intellectually dishonest person Willis Hart this particular as*hole has ever had to deal with.

The particular as*hole (PA) who levied this insult (and then banned me from his blog) did so because I defended a report from the Brookings Institute and the Tax Policy Center that said the Romney tax plan would raise taxes on the poor and middle class (see my previous post on the subject). Regarding Brookings' determination "...that a revenue-neutral individual income tax change that incorporates the features Governor Romney has proposed... maintaining all tax breaks for saving and investment... would... increase the tax burdens on middle and/or lower-income taxpayers", PA asserted that, "this study was done for one purpose, and one purpose only, to make frigging Romney look ridiculous".

Because Romney has put forward very few specifics, Brookings was required to make a number of assumptions in order to do the analysis at all. One of the things they assumed was that because Romney has said he favors "maintaining all tax breaks for saving and investment" that items that fall into this category are "off the table".

So just what deductions is Mitt Romney talking about? In their analysis Brookings/TPC says, "offsetting the $360 billion in revenue losses necessitates a reduction of roughly 65 percent of available tax expenditures. Such a reduction... would require deep reductions in many popular tax benefits ranging from the mortgage interest deduction, the exclusion for employer-provided health insurance, the deduction for charitable contributions, and benefits for low and middle-income families and children like the EITC and child tax credit".

No way says PA. PA thinks it is much more likely that Romney would lower taxes as he has described, while keeping these deductions and allow the deficit to rise. Do I think Romney would actually put forward a budget that did this? I doubt it, but, AGAIN, he has proposed a huge tax cut that also "maintains all tax breaks for saving and investment", and that simply is not possible unless many or most tax expenditures are reduced or eliminated. This is another reasonable assumption... in my opinion.

But because of these assumptions PA determined that the Brookings analysis was BS. Why? Apparently because the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, and the Manhattan Institute (all Conservative) made that exact criticism. Even though Brookings concluded that "maintaining all tax breaks for saving and investment" meant taxing these items would be "off the table".

But PA says the report's assumptions are not reasonable, and when I continued to insist they are, PA flew off the handle declaring, "what an absolute piece of shit you are". Why? Because I was claiming (according to PA) that "[Brookings] included it by not including it". No. They looked at these items and determined that they were "off the table" because they fell into the category of "tax breaks for saving and investment".

So, why MUST these items be "on the table" according to PA? Because Mitt Romney has never said they were off. In other words, because Romney has not put forward a detailed tax plan, ANY analysis of a possible Romney tax plan (taking what Romney has said and making some assumptions) is completely invalid. Or any analysis that doesn't include reducing or eliminating tax deductions for "municipal bonds and life insurance savings" is invalid. Why? Damned if I know.

I do know, however, that I'm "intellectually dishonest" for agreeing with the Brookings determination that these things would be "off the table", and was banned for that reason. PA authored a post that said, "You're done. I don't want you to comment here anymore". OK by me. This guy is clearly a lunatic. Why we can't simply disagree on what is a "reasonable assumption" is beyond me.

Finally, regarding the comment from PA that the Brookings/TPC report was done, "to make frigging Romney look ridiculous"... PA says Brookings (one of the preeminent Think Tanks in the country) is LYING because they are a "Liberal" organization. He bases this on an article from US News & World Report that points out that from 2003 to 2010 most of Brookings political contributions went to Democrats (97.6% to Democrats and 1.2% to Republicans).

The US News & World Report article identifies Brookings as a "Liberal" Think Tank. However, in an article titled "Brookings: The Establishment's Think Tank", Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) points out that "much of Brookings' top brass has come from Republican administrations". FAIR says labeling Brookings Liberal is "a victory of Right-wing think tanks" and that "to this day, Brookings is commonly, and inaccurately, dubbed liberal... It's called centrist almost as often, but never conservative, though that label would be more accurate than liberal".

SourceWatch says Brookings was "initially centrist... [but] since the 1990s it has taken steps further towards the Right in parallel with the increasing influence of Right-wing think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation.

Wikipedia states that the Tax Policy Center was formed "in 2002, [by] tax experts who had served in the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton administrations [with the objective of] providing unbiased analysis of tax issues".

Now, FAIR and SourceWatch are both progressive/Liberal organizations, but who better to determine what organizations are "Liberal" than other Liberal organizations? So why all the donations to Democrats? I say it is because that is where all the Moderates are. PA describes himself as a "Moderate", and has (previously) identified as a "Blue Dog" Democrat. So who are these Moderate Republicans he thinks Brookings should be donating to if they were really (in PA's estimation) a centrist organization?

With the ascendance of the Tea Party and Mitt having to adopt positions contrary to those he used to hold in order to secure the nomination, how can any sane person deny the Republican Party has moved to the Far Right? Beats me, yet the Hartster does just that, in agreement with his Conservative buddy dmarks who contends that Brookings is a "well known leftist group".

But articles can easily be found via Googling that correctly state that Republicans of yesteryear would not be welcome in the Republican Party of today, including Richard Nixon and the Repub saint Ronald Reagan.

In a recent Fox News interview conducted by Chris Wallace former Senate majority leader Bob Dole said he "doesn't think he could make it in today's Republican Party". Wallace referred to Dole's "generation as Eisenhower Republicans, moderate Republicans". These are the Republicans that by and large no longer exist, so how the hell can Brookings donate to the re-election campaigns of moderate Republicans when there aren't any (or hardly any)? The answer to that question should be self-evident, I say.

But I disagreed, and that was another of several reasons the "Moderate" proprietor of Contra O'Reilly asked me to leave his blog and never return (and that he'd delete my comments if I did). This is a frigging stoopid reason for a banning, IMO. What it really shows is this Willis Hart fellow is really not all that Moderate.

Afterword: On 2/10/2013 PA (AKA Willis Hart) authored a post titled "The Silence of the Lefts" in which he criticized the political Left for it's "silence" regarding specific actions taken by the Obama Administration that are very similar to actions taken by the prior administration. Specifically drone strikes, reauthorization of the PATRIOT act, indefinite detention and rendition of terror suspects, and the president's kill list.

For the record I actually AGREE with PA. Both with his objection to these policies, and with his criticism of the Left in it's acceptance of Obama continuing these policies (when they were severely critical of bush when he did the exact same things). Willis does, however, slip in one lie. According to him Democrats in Congress were "seemingly" briefed on waterboarding. He is one of those who thinks Nancy Pelosi lied when she said the CIA never briefed her on the fact that they were waterboarding. Pelosi told the truth about not being briefed about EITs (enhanced Interrogation Techniques) AKA waterboarding, as her House colleague Bob Graham confirmed.

Also, while the Left (voters and politicians) are much too accepting of these policies just because a Democratic president is in office, there are voices of Progressive disagreement. I would have told Willis that if I had been allowed to comment (and I did tell him I disagreed with these policies prior to my banning). I am actually in agreement with the 26 members of the Progressive caucus (the real Left) who sent a letter to President Obama "demanding greater openness on all aspects of its counterterrorism-related targeted killing program".

I am also in agreement with Progressive host of The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur, who says the problem isn't with drones, because drones are just a tool. The actual problem is how we are using this tool. The three problems identified by Mr. Uygur are that... [1] We have used drones to execute U.S. civilians without a trial, [2] Most of the drone strikes are signature strikes where we have no idea who we're killing, and [3] We often do double taps where we kill first-responders and the people trying to help the wounded.

I am absolutely in agreement with Mr. Uygur on all three points. With these three concerns addressed I'd have much less a problem with the Obama administration's use of drones. But because they are not addressing them, and are in fact killing innocent civilians - I say they are creating more "terrorists" than they are killing... by angering the relatives of the innocents we are killing, who then join up to fight against the United States [1].

As it currently is utilized I strongly oppose the administration's use of drones. I am not silent in this regard. Also, in regards to the uninformed (Lefty) voters, Mr. Uygur says, "the great majority of Americans have no idea what we're doing with these drones. They think we're only targeting high level terrorists". He is correct. There are uninformed voters on both the Left and the Right. Here the Left is "silent" (in support of the drone program) because they don't understand how the drone program works.

In concluding his post PA says, "I'm beginning to think here that the Left wasn't so much anti-war as anti-Bush", but I say he is a fibbing (as well as displaying his fervent anti-Left bias). He has a point (so I don't say "lie"), but to not mention (at all) that there are those on the Left who are against these policies - the same as when bush was president - is a little dishonest. Only "a little" because I'm sure there are some on the Left who only complained about drones when bush was president because bush was president. Now they support the use of drones because it is a Democratic president doing it.

But for PA to suggest the Left is entirely silent? The progressives (that Willis dislikes with much intensity) ARE speaking out. That he ignores this fact is as dishonest as PA's characterization of me as "the most intellectually dishonest person [he] has ever had to deal with". That is way over the top and a huge distortion of reality - a reality in which I AGREE with him on some topics but disagree with him on others. The problem PA actually had with me was that, when I disagreed I wouldn't end up caving when he kept insisting he was right.

Footnote
[1] AKA blowback, which is a concept the idiot Willis, while he criticizes Obama for his drone policy, does not agree with. According to dope, the idea that all the murdering via drone that we're doing (of mostly innocents) causes anyone to seek revenge "ultimately fails". The US, in his mind, is blameless, in other words. Sounds like something a jingoist fear mongering warmongering MIC-stooging Republican would say. (Note: This footnote was added on 7/19/2015).

Video Description: Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks speaks out against Obama's use of drones.

SWTD #160, wDel #27.

A Disgusting Attack On Children And Adults Living In Poverty From A Sick Conservative Mind

The slave was precious to his master because of the money he had cost him... They were worth at least as much as they could be sold for in the market... It is the impossibility of living by any other means that compels our farm labourers to till the soil whose fruits they will not eat and our masons to construct buildings in which they will not live... It is want that compels them to go down on their knees to the rich man in order to get from him permission to enrich him... what effective gain [has] the suppression of slavery brought [him ?] He is free, you say. Ah! That is his misfortune... These men... [have] the most terrible, the most imperious of masters, that is, need. They must therefore find someone to hire them, or die of hunger. Is that to be free? ~ Simon Linguet (7/14/1736 to 6/27/1794) French journalist and advocate, 1763.

I have, in comments on a Conservative blog referred to workers toiling for low amounts of money as "wage slaves. In response, a sick individual who calls himself dmarks (real name Dennis Marks) responded with the following...

Dennis Marks: "Wave slave" is one of those phrases made up by people completely ignorant of economics that does two bad things... 1) it levels a nasty insult at working people. 2) It trivializes real slavery, by implying that experience of real slaves isn't any worse than that of some kid from a well-fed family working at Starbucks whose only worry that he might not be able to afford trading in his iPhone 4S for an iPhone 5. (2/21/2013 AT 4:14pm).

This is really sick, disgusting stuff. It trivializes poverty. Wage slavery is real. Wikipedia describes it as "a situation perceived as quasi-voluntary slavery, where a person's livelihood depends on wages, especially when the dependence is total and immediate".

For individuals living in poverty, a low-paying job CAN accurately be described as "wage slavery", as the dependence on their wages are total and immediate. But notice that Mr. Marks denies the fact that poverty even exists, claiming that the troubles of a person earning a low salary have to do with them needlessly and foolishly upgrading their iPhone!

This is what Conservatives usually do when confronted with the ugly realities their self-centered greedy worldview (when put into practice by Republican legislators) creates. First they deny that poverty exists, by talking about the "poor" having things like microwaves and refrigerators (to start. Then they go to another level by claiming that poor people are buying widescreen TVs and iPhones).

This is what is known as blaming the victim. If the victim is responsible for their own predicament (those making low wages made - and continue to make - poor life choices), then the greedy Conservative is absolved of any responsibility or uncomfortable guilty feelings. There is no need for any compassion what-so-ever.

However, An article on the National Center for Law and Economic Justice website (a national non-profit organization dedicated to "advancing the cause of economic justice for low-income families, individuals, and communities across the country") reports, that "Census figures released in September 2012 reveal record-high numbers of people continue to live in poverty in the United States".

According to the report, "46.2 million people, [or] One out of seven people... were living in poverty in the United States in 2011 - the largest number of persons counted as poor in the 53 years of poverty measurements".

Shameful, huh? The wealthiest country on the planet and poverty is at an all time high. Yet, we have Conservatives like Dennis denying that poverty even exists! He further makes light of my use of the term "wage slave" by referring to a minimum wage earner's child as "well-fed". The truth is that 21.9 percent of children live in poverty, and "more than 20 million US children rely on school meal programs to keep from going hungry" (20 Facts About Child Hunger).

The reason Conservatives like Dennis deny the plight of the working poor is because they do not wish to pay slightly higher taxes to combat poverty. They also do not want to pay slightly more for their goods and services, so they rail against raising the minimum wage (many even call for eliminating it all together). They claim that a minimum wage HURTS low wage earners (because employers will be "forced" to fire them, or not hire them at all). This is categorically false, as I pointed out in my previous post. (It is also why they support job-destroying free trade agreements).

So why do these individuals deny the facts so emphatically? The answer is greed, plain and simple. Dennis' feigning concern over the trivialization of slavery is SO transparent. The term "wage slave" does NOT imply that the experience of real slaves wasn't (or isn't) worse, but his rejection of the term DOES trivialize poverty.

In Dennis' world slavery is awesome when the slave masters have no need for any concern at all regarding whether or not their slaves have adequate food, clothing, shelter and medical care. Clearly empathy is a completely foreign concept to these individuals, which is why they have to pretend to be offended on behalf of people living in bondage, or pretend Liberals are jingoistic when they express concern about the outsourcing of good-paying American jobs (yes, this is another ridiculous claim Dennis regularly makes).

When Conservatives like Dennis spout this nonsense it is because they are trying to cover for their selfishness and greed - it's the same reason they accuse the president of being a "socialist" when he's actually a Conservative Democrat.

SWTD #123, dDel #1.

The Truth About the Minimum Wage

There are people who would like to get rid of minimum wage. But we have to have it, because if we didn't some people would not get paid money. They would work all week for two loaves of bread and some Spam ~ Chris Rock (dob 2/7/1965) an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director.

The following from a self described "Moderate" regarding President Obama's call for an increase in the minimum wage...

Willis Hart: The minimum wage hurts low-skilled workers and freezes them out of entry level opportunities. A young kid (and that's who generally make minimum wage; youngsters, retired folks, second-wager earners - and even they're only 3-5% of the work force - virtually ZERO bread-winners make the minimum wage and you really have to wonder about the wisdom of a person making minimum wage having kids) who I might be willing to give a chance at $5 an hour but not at $9 an hour (the idiotic suggestion by Obama) - that's the person who ends up getting hurt by the meddling of government. (2/18/2013 AT 2:55pm).

In response I say "baloney". Everything Mr. Hart asserts is completely false. They're Conservative talking points (from a "Moderate") designed to justify the payment of substandard wages (so the wealthy can put that money in their pocket). In my opinion this wage slavery is a form of theft - the most pervasive one that exists in the world.

What follows is an excerpt from the 2/16/2013 broadcast of MSNBC's Up With Chris Hayes, which supports my position (edited for brevity and clarity)...

Chris Hayes: One of the biggest surprises in President Obama's State of the Union address this week was his call for an increase in the federal minimum wage, up to $9 an hour from it's current level of $7.25. The president also called for indexing the minimum wage to inflation to ensure it rises in line with the cost of living.

[Video Excerpt] President Obama, from his SOTU address: Tonight let's declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth no one who works full time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour (Democrats applaud. Biden stands and applauds while Boner remains seated).

*Edit* (to cut down on the long applause, I presume). This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families. It could mean the difference between groceries or the food bank. Rent or eviction. Scraping by or finally getting ahead. For businesses across the country it would mean customers with more money in their pockets. [End Obama SOTU excerpt]

Chris Hayes: Republicans and business groups immediately began lining up against increasing the minimum wage. Here's House Speaker John Boehner the next day...

[Video Excerpt] John Boner, lying about the minimum wage: When you raise the price of employment, guess what happens? You get less of it. ...what happens when you take away the first couple of rungs on the economic ladder? You make it harder for people to get on the ladder. [End video clip of Boner lying so wealthy employers can continue stealing from workers]

Chris Hayes: John Boehner was channeling what conventional wisdom and economics 101 textbooks have told us for decades - that increasing the cost of employment causes reductions in employment. But, as it turns out that isn't the case. There's a growing body of strong empirical evidence suggesting that increases in the minimum wage - within a certain range - have no negative effect on employment. In fact, minimum wage increases may actually boost worker efficiency and add new demand to the economy by putting more money in the pockets of low wage workers.

The common GOP trope about those low wage workers is that many of them are teenagers, part-time, or summer jobs. But, in fact, according to the Economic Policy Institute are over 20 years old. Nearly half of those who would benefit from a minimum wage increase are full time workers, and over 54 percent have a combined family income of less than 40 thousand dollars a year.

Joining me now [is] Arindrajit Dube, assistant professor of economics, UMASS Amherst, who has done seminal research on the employment effects of minimum wage increases [and] Lew Prince, owner of Vintage Vinyl, a small business in St. Louis. He met with President Obama at the White House in November as part of a group of small business owners.

Great to have you here. ... if the government mandated that businesses sell a loaf of bread for $5, what we would see is less bread being sold. Because it was more expensive households would consume less of it. This [theory] was applied many years to the minimum wage... then empirical work started being done... Arin, can you walk us through what the research says about what the effect of the minimum wage is?

Arindrajit Dube: Starting in the early 90s, we started seeing a lot of variation [in the minimum wage] across states because the federal minimum wage was stagnant for so long... [this allowed researchers] to study the effects of the [differing] minimum wages. ...starting in the early 90s a set of studies looked at these variations and asked what happens when the minimum wage rises?

The famous one, of course, is by David Card and Alan Krueger [the 1992 study showed "that raising the minimum wage did not necessarily cost jobs"].

Chris Hayes: [Your research] where you have this massive database, 16 years of data... you correlate that - controlling for other factors - with employment, and you find?

Arindrajit Dube: No evidence of job loss in minimum wage jobs in the last 20 years. Whereas there is no reduction in jobs, we find, actually, a strong reduction in turnover.

Chris Hayes: Lew, does that jibe with your experience as a small business owner?

Lew Prince: Absolutely. One of the reason that I never paid a minimum wage is because it is very expensive to find and train good people. By paying more I can retain them. I can demand more of them, and it turns out they demand more of themselves.

Chris Hayes: This is known in economics as the efficiency wage. If you pay a wage above the market-clearing rate, you can actually induce more productivity. You can induce better work in the workers.

My Commentary: You can induce better work from workers by paying them a higher wage than the bare-minimum because people like it when their work is appreciated. Workers who know their work is appreciated will try harder for their employers. This is contrary to what Conservatives believe, which is a wage is only "fair" if it is as low a wage as the employer can possibly pay. That low wage is what the "market" determines... or so says the Conservative. They CLAIM that if the wage is to low that workers will go elsewhere.

What the Conservative IGNORES is the fact that the norm is for there to be an oversupply of workers relative to jobs. So, what happens when the supply of something is in excess of what is needed? The price is driven down! A lot of people looking for work doesn't make the value of their work less! It just makes it easier for employers to screw workers by offering substandard wages.

It's a take it or starve situation. Some people WOULD work for bread and Spam, which is fine by Conservatives (as it means the wealthy business owners can put more money in their pockets), and ensures them (they think) lower-priced goods and services (they always wildly exaggerate how much prices would go up with a higher minimum wage).

SWTD #122, wDel #14.

Banksters Threaten Politicians With SuperPAC; Tea Party Useful Idiots for Banksters

The nation's banks have been taking it on the chin for too long. Until this very moment they've been powerless to strike back. Now, finally, the Supreme Court has bestowed the tools on them, through Citizens United, to finally have a voice in public affairs. They can now begin their trip on the road to renewal with their very own SuperPAC ~ David Dayen, in the sarcastic opening of his FireDogLake article, "Bankers Finally Get a Voice With Their Own SuperPAC".

The following is an excerpt from the 4/5/2012 broadcast of Current TV's The Young Turks, which I edited for brevity and clarity. Host Cenk Uygur and guest Thomas Frank discuss the takeover of our democracy by the plutocrats and the role of the Tea Party useful idiots.

Cenk Uygur: There is a new SuperPAC in favor of the bankers, and they say they're going to buy the politicians. ... Apparently they think they are suffering great injustices. Now, let me give you some quotes from some of the bankers involved.

Roger Beverage is the president and CEO of the Oklahoma Bankers Association, and he says, "Congress isn't afraid of bankers, they don't think we'll do anything to kick them out of office. We are trying to change that perception".

Oh yeah, nobody in Congress is afraid of you at all. That's why Dick Durbin, the number two man for the Democrats in the Senate said, "frankly they run the place". They RUN the place! And this guy is like, boo-hoo they won't listen to us.

Before I go on, let me give you an interesting stat. The FIRE sector (that stand for Finance, Insurance and Real Estate), is number one in lobbying. They are the biggest contributor of campaign funds and the biggest spender on lobbying in Washington over the past 14 years. And they cry about not having enough representation?!

Look at this, more crying here... Howard Headlee, president and CEO Utah Bankers Association, quote, "clearly there are members of Congress who have absolutely no reservations about kicking traditional banks in the teeth, and we are tired of it. We've got to be able to defend the folks who have the courage to stand up for us as well".

As if bankers are oppressed. Oh my god, the bankers! Is anybody standing up for them? It's absurd. But at least they're honest about their intentions here. They basically talk about buying our politicians. Here is Matt Packard, who is the chairman of Friends of Traditional Banking. He says, "if someone says I am going to give your opponent 5 thousand dollars or 10 thousand dollars, you might say 'Yea, OK'. But if you say the bankers are going to put in 100 thousand or 500 thousand, or 1 million into your opponent's campaign, that starts to draw some attention".

You know what that means? That means "let's go buy them"! 5 or 10 thousand won't do it. I need a million, and I [say to the politician], "either you're going to get elected with this million dollars, or your opponent is going to get elected with this million dollars". So you now work for the banks. As if they didn't buy our politicians enough already.

Finally, one more minute of clarity, we have Don Childears, president and CEO of the Colorado Bankers Association, saying, "we need to get more deeply involved as an industry in supporting friends and trying to replace enemies".

OK, if you don't do as the bankers tell you, you're going to get fired. It's not like you're the people's representative, you're now the representative of these donors who have bought you. Now they're going to buy you even more effectively, if you can imagine it. We have the perfect guest to discuss this - Thomas Frank, the author of the best seller What's the matter with Kansas, and he also has a new book out, Pity the Billionaire.

First of all, tell me about the hardships facing Billionaires and bankers in this country. How bad of shape are they in?

Thomas Frank: It's been really hard on them Cenk. They were bailed out. The government was basically giving them cash at extremely low interest rates. It's been difficult.

Cenk: That drives me crazy. 700 billion from TARP (at least), and 7.7 trillion in basically free money from the FED (money that they can turn around and loan back to the government at 3 or 4 percent). They get all this money with no strings attached (they can give any bonuses they like), honestly it's a GD robbery. And here are the robbers crying, "oh, poor us", right?

So the question that arises, and the one you try to answer in your book, is... how did they get away with it?

Thomas Frank: These people who are society's masters are now complaining that everyone is being mean to them; that they're being ground under the heel of a Socialist tyrant. Have you ever read Atlas Shrugged?

Cenk: When I was younger I tried to read it. I read like three pages, and I was like, this is the most boring book I've read in my whole life.

Thomas Frank: I forced myself to read it last year. It's the most popular book with the Tea Party set. It had a huge resurgence in the aftermath of the bailouts. Everybody was buying it. The book is about capitalists going on strike because people like you and me are to mean to them. [both laugh]

Cenk: This isn't capitalism, it's crony capitalism, where a select few bankers capture the whole system and use it to crush their competition.

Thomas Frank: We're seeing it happen before our eyes. Setting up the SuperPAC, that's what this is all about.

Cenk: It's obvious. They're saying, we're going to spend a million dollars and the [politician] will do whatever the hell we tell him to. Now the question is, how do they get the population to [vote against their own interests and in the interests of the banksters]?

Thomas Frank: The way they do it, and you've seen this unfold over the last couple of years... they represent themselves as a populist movement; as the populist response to the financial crisis. [They deployed the Tea Party dupes to] rail against socialism and economic collapse if we don't return to laissez-faire capitalism. The really crazy thing [is that people buy this nonsense]. They won in 2010.

Cenk: Right. The Tea Party people...the actual voters going to the protests... they have no idea what's going on. They said they were against the bailouts, but they didn't do a single protest on Wall Street, they didn't protest against (even Obama's) Treasury Department. Do you think they know they were tricked, or are they like, "yea, we're fighting for the little guy!".

Thomas Frank: I went to the very first Tea Party rally in a park in Washington DC, less than a month after Obama was inaugurated. The things that they were saying kind of made sense to me. A lot of the things they were protesting against were things that I was angry about too. It started as them being angry about the bailouts, but somehow, along the way this gets turned into a call for a more pure free market. We haven't deregulated enough. We need to double down in the direction we've been going for the past 30 years.

Cenk: They got suckered hook, line and sinker. The Koch brothers sent the buses in. They said, here, we know you need to go to the anti-Obama pro-corporate rallies, and [the Tea Partiers] fell for it.

My Commentary: The Supreme Court Citizens United decision was the beginning of the end of our democracy. Unless President Obama is elected to a second term and he is able to appoint one or more SCOTUS judges, it's over... goodbye democracy, hello plutocracy.

Video Description: Cenk restates the Bankster SuperPAC story for The Young Turks YouTube channel. Quote: "The greedy never stop being greedy". Go to Wolf-PAC to fight back.

SWTD #113

United States Fails to Nab Top Honors in International Competition. Disappointed Republicans Blame President Obama

I have some very strong feelings, the most important of which at the moment is campaign finance reform because its tentacles reach into every other issue. I fear we're getting closer to a plutocracy than we want to, and I believe that deep down the people want to do something about that -- Warren Beatty (b. 3/30/1937).

On 4/12/2011 the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) announced the winners in an international economic competition. Shocked Republican politicians could not believe that the United States had not only not won top honors, but actually came in fourth behind Chile, Mexico and Turkey!

According to the OECD's report, titled Society at a Glance 2011: OECD Social Indicators, income inequality is greater in those three countries. Disappointed Republicans vowed to work harder to ensure that next time we come in first place.

"This is really embarrassing", a dismayed Paul Ryan was reported to have said. "The most powerful nation in the world was bested by Chile", an incredulous Ryan continued. "Ayn Rand must be rolling over in her grave". The crestfallen Ryan further remarked that, "this is another reason why we need to adopt my budget. The USA can and should be number one!"

Other Republican suggestions for propelling the US into the number one position included abolishing the minimum wage and the passage of a national right to work law. When asked what he thought about the minimum wage Kentucky Senator Randal Paul said, "I think the question you have to ask is -- does the minimum wage, in the long run, have negative social effects? Do we want a higher standard of living for the working poor and middle class at the expense of higher profits for the employers?". Mr. Paul was adamant that the answer to that question is "no".

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint said, "I wholeheartedly agree with my colleague, the esteemed Mr. Paul. The lower classes have had a free ride for far too long. Their wages are out of step with what workers in other countries receive. This is why I've introduced a bill designed to neuter the unions and thus cut wages. Lower wages for workers means more profit for the owners".

"We pretend to revere the Founders for the benefit of the rabble", Texas Representative Kevin Brady revealed in a moment of unusual Republican honesty. "Is inherited wealth incompatible with Democracy as Jefferson claimed? I would say yes. But we're a Republic, not a Democracy", Brady explained.

"This is why my party -- with the help of a few conservative Democrats -- introduced the Bipartisan Bill to Permanently Repeal Federal Estate Tax on March 30th of this year".

Speaker of the House John Boehner blamed President Obama for America's failure to win the OECD prize, remarking, "You can thank the Republicans lying about pursuing a jobs agenda for our coming in 4th. If we had actually done something about jobs like we promised we may have come in 5th place".

Postscript: Congress was recently evacuated due to what was first believed to be a gas leak. It was later discovered that the gas that was leaking was actually an aerosolized version of a truth serum drug. It is unknown at this time how the gas was released into the ventilation system. The Capitol Police are investigating.

These quotations were obtained by staff researcher Janeane Garner of the Progressive Ideology Foundation (PIF) in on-the-street interviews with the members of Congress following the evacuation. Representatives of the Congresspersons interviewed have since disavowed the quotations. PIF is a US-based Progressive think tank which is also known as Liberal Headquarters.

A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fullness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural -- Thomas Jefferson (4/13/1743 to 7/4/1826) 3rd President of the United States (3/4/1801 to 3/4/1809), founding father, and principal author of the Declaration of Independence.

[The estate tax] is a tenet of Marxism -- Christine O'Donnell (b. 8/27/1969) perennial candidate who lost the November 2010 U.S. Senate election in Delaware to Democrat Chris Coons by a margin of 57% to 40%; as quoted in a 10/13/2010 debate with her opponent.

 swtd-81. polfi-6.  Previous. Next.

Tearing Down FDR

The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough to those who have little ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States (3/4/1933 to 4/12/1945) as quoted in his Second Inaugural Address (1/20/1937).

Welcome to the 3rd installment of "Will Hart Delusions" wherein I refute the comments of an individual who calls himself Will "Take No Prisoners" Hart (WTNPH).

Liberals have it all wrong regarding 32nd President of the United States and progressive icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Or they've got it partially wrong, at least. Today's progressives are so far to the Left that they make even FDR look like a moderate, or so one might believe if one were to listen to people like WTNPH spin it.

It began with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's attack on the public sector unions. Scott decided his first order of business when he entered office was going to be a big tax giveaway to benefit his state's corporations. Wisconsin was running a slight surplus, but Scott's proposed tax cut would put Wisconsin deep in the red. Scott determined that the solution would be to cut the wages and benefits of government workers. He knew he would take a lot of flack for this action, so he decided to blame the greedy unions (instead of himself) for Wisconsin's financial woes (which didn't exist prior to his taking office).

It turned out to be a two-for! Scott's corporate buddies got their tax cut paid for on the backs of working class public servants, and Scott got to engage in some old-fashioned union busting. Since the Republicans held large majorities in both of the state's Houses of Congress, the "union bosses" knew they would most certainly have to make some concessions. Which is why they immediately agreed to Scott's demands that they accept a pay cut AND contribute additional dollars to their health care plans and pension accounts. The only thing they asked is that Scott not take away their collective bargaining rights.

Scott, knowing that the greedy unions could be stopped once and for all, refused. He was only executing the will of the people. The stupid Conservative sheeple cheered him on; even FDR was on their side! We know this because FDR said, "...the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service". WTNPH used this quote in a post he titled "Straight From the Progressive's Mouth" (2/22/2011). All over the internets Conservatives pointed to this quote and drew the obvious conclusion - FDR and Scott Walker would have agreed that public sector unions are bad.

Most of these Conservatives quoted a 2/19/2011 Real Clear Politics article which stated that "FDR's Ghost Is Smiling on Wisconsin's Governor". Do they really expect us to believe that FDR would have been cool with Walker's partisan union busting? FYI, we know Scott's union busting was partisan because when the Wisconsin Democratic Senators fled the state to prevent a quorm, the Senate Republicans spun off the union busting provision of the "budget repair" bill into a separate piece of legislation. A quorum is only necessary when the legislation in question is fiscal in nature. In other words they ADMITTED that the union busting had absolutely nothing to do with "repairing" Wisconsin's budget.

On 2/21/2011 a Daily Kos blogger authored a post titled, "GOP Lying About FDR Again". In the post the DK blogger made the point that "FDR did not oppose public employee unions. He opposed strikes by federal public employee unions". Said DK blogger further explained that FDR opposed strikes because "Federal [employees have an] obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of government activities".

Government workers provide essential services that (in many cases) the people DEPEND on. In the private sector if a product or service isn't currently available for purchase - because the employees that manufacture the product or provide the service are striking, then the consumer has the option to go to the private sector company's competitor. This isn't an option when the product or service is being provided by government workers. Thus FDR's concern regarding strikes by public sector employees is understandable.

However, aside from being opposed to public sector employees striking, FDR believed "organizations of government employees have a logical place in government affairs", and that "organization on their part to present their views on such matters is both natural and logical". This is according to a letter FDR wrote to Luther Steward, the president of the National Federation of Federal Employees; a letter in which he closes by saying, "I congratulate the National Federation of Federal Employees the twentieth anniversary of its founding...".

Why would FDR congratulate a public sector union on it's founding if didn't believe it should exist? Also, isn't collective bargaining one of the primary reasons for forming a union? WTNPH categorically rejected my reasoning. In response to my argument (as outlined above) WTNPH re-posted the initial FDR quote, this time in ALL CAPS. You can't argue with that logic, I conceded, eventually giving up and bowing out of the discussion.

FDR also once said "a conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward". The point is that times change. In 1962 President Kennedy signed an executive order giving public employee unions the right to collectively bargain with federal government agencies.

In FDR's day the US government stood clearly on the side of labor. Today that is not so much the case. In fact I'd argue that our government is now decidedly pro-corporate (see my 12/7/2010 post, "How The Wealthy Elites Stole Our Prosperity" for that argument). Given this fact would FDR still believe that collective bargaining "cannot be transplanted into the public service"? Even though there was nuance to his position which Conservatives apparently are missing (or are choosing to ignore), I believe his opinion would be slightly different today given the increasingly hostile environment Labor finds itself subjected to.

Linked to on Sue's blog "Hello Mr. President" AKA "The Left In Me" on 6/15/2011 & re my link, Leslie Parsley wrote "w-deverish. Excellent article. Thanks for the link".

SWTD #68, wDel #3.

How The Wealthy Elites Stole Our Prosperity

Those seeking profits, were they given total freedom, would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights secure. Indeed, it has always been those seeking wealth who were the source of corruption in government. No other depositories of power have ever yet been found, which did not end in converting to their own profit the earnings of those committed to their change ~ Thomas Jefferson (4/13/1743 to 7/4/1826) 3rd President of the United States (3/4/1801 to 3/4/1809). He was the eponym of Jeffersonian democracy and the co-founder and leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, which dominated American politics for 25 years.

Alan Greenspan served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006. This period of time covered the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. As Fed chairman, Greenspan worked to advance the interests of the upper-class at the expense of the interests of the rest of the nation.

During the Clinton years the economy boomed. Business did well and the real wages of workers began to rise. This worried the investor class. If wages continued to rise it would affect their profits. Sure, they'd still go up, but they deserved a BIGGER piece of the expanding pie. In early 1997, the sixth year of economic expansion, Alan Greenspan made a statement before the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs meant to reassure the business community that he knew how to keep wages low.

Greenspan said that, while "the performance of the U.S. economy over the past year has been quite favorable", there was nothing to worry about because "workers fear of losing their jobs restrains them from seeking the pay raises that usually crop up when employers have trouble finding people to hire" (Wall Street Journal 1/27/1997). And Greenspan saw one of his main responsibilities as Federal Reserve Board Chairman to be to maintain "a high-enough level of worker insecurity [so] employees wouldn't demand pay raises and benefit increases" ("Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class" by Thom Hartmann, p.48-49).

Fed chairman is an influential and prestigious position. People listen to the top economist in the land, so when the Maestro advised that, in order to ensure continued good times, we needed to go after "wage inflation", the President and Congress listened. Under Greenspan the federal government abandoned previously held pro-labor positions. When businesses violated laws on illegal strikebreaking and hired permanent replacement workers, the agencies responsible for the enforcement of these laws declined to intervene (citations issued by the The International Labor Organization attest to this fact).

Immigration laws were inadequately enforced and people willing to work for less diluted the labor pool. Companies were encouraged to, and rewarded for, sending American jobs to low wage countries. Various "free trade" treaties were championed by both Republican and Democratic presidents and ratified by their respective Congresses. ("Power in The Global Arena", Lecture by Noam Chomsky, 5/1998).

The strategy worked. Profits soared (along with upper-class incomes) while pay for the middle class and the working poor remained flat (or went down). Throw the bush tax into the mix and it's easy to see why the economy is in the dumper. Economist Ravi Batra explains that, "a healthy economy requires that there is a balance between supply and demand. Here supply means the production of goods and services offered to entire society, and demand means society’s demand for such things. Thus, economic balance requires that [supply equals demand]. Without this balance, there is either high unemployment or high inflation".

In other words, Supply side economics and anti-wage inflationary policies lead to unemployment and recession. Because The average citizen (who is still employed) can no longer afford to purchase what is being produced (especially after they've mortgaged their home to the hilt and maxed out their credit cards).

I made this point on another message board in a recent discussion with an "Independent Moderate". I claimed that the solution to the problem we now face is for our elected officials to take steps to "ensure" wages rise. The Independent Moderate's incredulous response was to ask, "how do you ensure that people's wages increase? The government... not unless you're talking about the old East Germany... can't do that".

Does Willis Hart (the aforementioned Independent Moderate) think I was expressing my desire that the government step in and dictate to business what they pay their employees? If that is the case I'm surprised he didn't cite a Communist country as his example. The reason I wrote this post was to explain how, while remaining a democracy, our government can take steps to ensure that wages rise. Just as the adherents of "Greenspan-nomics" enacted policies ensuring wages remained low, polices can (and should) be enacted to ensure the exact opposite.

Progressive radio talk show host Thom Hartmann agrees that it is possible. According to Mr. Hartmann, "Government can set the rules of the game of business in such a way that working people must receive a living wage, that labor has the power to organize into unions just as capital can organize into corporations, and that domestic industries can be protected from overseas competition. When these rules are combined with a democratic form of government, a strong middle class will emerge. The middle class vanishes and we return to the con's Dickens-era form of economics, where the rich get richer and the working poor are kept in a constant state of fear and anxiety so the cost of their labor will always be cheap" (Screwed, p.50).

The cure for our economic ills is to re-adopt pro-labor, pro-middleclass policies and dump the Conservative policies that favor the wealthy. Repealing NAFTA, raising tariffs and penalizing corporations for shipping jobs overseas will encourage corporations who want to sell goods in America to hire Americans. This will bring jobs back to our country.

Passing comprehensive immigration reform backed up by a program like E-verify will drastically reduce unemployment. That and the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act will cause "worker insecurity" to evaporate and allow more workers to negotiate for higher pay. Throw in health care for all - by way of a public option - and the result will be increased prosperity for a majority of Americans instead of a select few.

For 40 years and counting the economic elites have been inflating their pay by depressing worker compensation. It's a transfer of wealth that has left 20% of the population holding 85% of the nation's wealth. This was not an accident. It was by design, and in my mind amounts to nothing less than thievery.

During the previously mentioned discussion with the Moderate Independent I asserted that the wealthy are "overpaid". The Hartster's response was to claim that I was "casually foisting" my value judgments on everyone else (Republicans and other Moderates like him, presumably). Willis conclusion was that was "ballsy" of me. No Willis, there is nothing "casual" about my conclusions.

I've done my homework on the matter and come to my conclusions based on an investigation of the facts. Actually I think you're the one who is "pretty ballsy" to suggest Liberals have reached their conclusions based on jealously and class envy... instead of a love of country and a desire to do what's in the best interest of a majority of it's citizens.

SWTD #57