Well…I know I said that I wasn’t going to do a political one today but this little thing popped into my head and I had to comment on it…to all of you out there that are in the working class and you are against unions, there is only one reason that you need to be for unions….they force companies to share the bounty of profits with everyone, with the hard workers that make the profits possible, not just the executive officers of the company. One of the reasons for the increasing disparity of income in this country is the decline of union membership over the past thirty years; form 25% down to the paltry 7% we have now.And, one of the worst offenders here in the US is Walmart who viciously opposes unionization of it’s North American workforce but allows it in every other country…well, not allows it but many other countries force them to allow their workers to unionize…or they are not allowed to be in those countries…not a bad idea for here, either…so, you tea partiers that have it in for unions and their members, it is you that is helping these thieves steal what is rightfully yours…..how does that feel you idiots?…..geez….
Category Archives: Politics
Still an “Occupy” supporter……
Well…from the start, I have been a supporter of the “Occupy” movement but I am starting to see some things I don’t really like…in Oakland yesterday there were some idiots who thought it would be a good idea to smash windows and do other acts of vandalism and I think it will hurt the movement in the long run if these folks are allowed to continue this lawlessness. It is a first amendment right to gather and protest, but it is just criminal behavior to allow these people to continue this nonsense. I don’t really place the blame on the “Occupy” organizers, since with any movement you get the outlier idiots that take it too far, but if they want to be taken seriously, some plan to find and remove these people should at least be in the works. I think we need to remember the right wing tricks of the sixties where people that were not members of the protests were sent in by the repubs to act badly and give the right excuses that could then be used to tar the whole movement. So, I would counsel vigilance at this point…to keep an eye out for this kind of shenanigan and to end it quickly when it happens….
The uncertainty boogeyman…
Well…I am getting a little tired of the…no, a lot tired of the talking point of the right that it is the uncertainty of the implementation of the healthcare law and other federal regulations that is keeping the economy from taking off. These assumptions are just a lot of hooey and speculation on the part of the right’s pundits and alleged experts…nothing more than a bunch of guesses that have no basis in history or fact. There is not one instance in the history of the American (or any other) economy that this type uncertainty has had anything to do with growth or job creation…in the face of slack demand that is rampant in our economy and the overcapacity that still exists, along with the productivity increases that have more than kept pace with that tepid growth….there is no reason for any business to hire anyone. But, the right is still using the lie of uncertainty to drive what is their main agenda…to remove any checks and balances and return us to the robber baron days of the early 20th century..or the deregulated financial days of the early 21st. This is just utter nonsense and ultimately highlights the lack of economic honesty in their arguments…it is all about demand…in this same environment of uncertainty, do you think that businesses wouldn’t hire if there were increased demand for their products or services? Geez….
More republican nonsense…
Well…I’ll bet you’re getting tired of my pointing out the nonsense that comes daily from the repubs, but someone has to do it and I really, really wanted to point this one out since it is so representative of the contempt the repubs have for the unemployed in this country. Instead of working on a real jobs bill that will help put people back to work, (and let’s not confuse the tax cut nonsense they are pushing for a jobs bill), the repubs in the house are going to waste the better part of a day this week on a resolution that will affirm that the “official” motto of this country is “In god we trust”. Yep, folks, I’m not making this up…in this one fell swoop, and in a bow to their evangelical base, these idiots are telling the 20% of us non-believers that there is no place for us here unless we allow the majority to force this bit of nonsense on us. When are we, as a country, going to stop voting for these do nothings whose only purpose in life is to make sure that the economy stays in the tank so Obama can’t get credit for it. And now, in an article that I just read….none of the senate repubs are going to vote for necessary infrastructure spending since it will be paid for by a tax of .7% on those whose incomes are over a million dollars a year. So, the rest of the nation is left to suffer crumbling roads, bridges, and schools just so the repubs can protect the unconscionable wealth of the 1%. I think their time is gonna come…to quote Led Zeppelin…geez….
The republicans are even ignoring business…
Well…this is going to be a shorty since I’m over my quota for the month and really don’t have a lot to say today…but, I did want to get to one thing…all of the repub candidates jobs plan consist of more and more of the same…tax cuts for business and the rich hoping that the largess heaped upon them will “trickle down” and create jobs; never mind that tax cuts have never created one job when there is no demand for the goods or services that job will create. Even business leaders are saying that it is not the tax burden that is holding back the economy but it is the lack of demand that comes from the falling real wages of everyone but the rich….on this point, there is plenty of blame to go around and the question I have for these same business leaders is “why would you expect rising demand when you keep cutting the real wages and benefits of your workers by outsourcing and not sharing the rise in productivity with your workers?” The real problem here is who goes first? People won’t start to spend again until they are comfortable that their rising wages will make it feasible to buy things again and business won’t raise wages or hire until demand is rising. So, as always, we’re stuck in a “Catch 22″ without any visionary person or company that will make the leap of faith necessary to break the gridlock…and on it goes….
More Snyder taxes on the people…
Well…the latest move by our gov here in Michigan is another slap in the face for the working people here…in case you haven’t heard, his latest proposal to transfer all of the tax burden here to the people of Michigan comes in the form of a proposal to pay for all of the road improvements that are sorely needed by raising the fee to register a car here by $160 per car. Yep, you heard it right…he wants to install another regressive tax on individuals in this state that can’t even afford what the fee is now…and this will be in addition to the current fees that can run upwards of $200 per car. All of this to raise 1.4 billion dollars that is necessary to fix our roads….all this after he raised the taxes of everyone but corporations…all of this after he gave away 1.3 billion dollars to corporations to create jobs…and guess who doesn’t own cars? So, all of the damage being done to the roads by trucks that carry to goods for corporations is going to be paid for by you and me? What does he want next….for us to build factories and offices for them? Oh, that’s right…we’re already doing that with the 1.3 billion in tax cuts that you and I are paying for….can you say class warfare again? Geez…
Where are the jobs Governor Snyder?
More trickle down nonsense…
Well…was just sitting here looking at the F-1 website and a thought came to me…they do that sometimes, as you can see from me being 5 ahead for the month. What spurred the thought was the return of the discredited notion of “trickle down” economics that posits that if you give more and more tax cuts to the rich and corporations, that money will trickle down to the middle class through an increased number of jobs. The question I have to ask is “how is this different from increased tax revenue going to the government to create jobs?” At least when the money goes to the government and it is spent for infrastructure repair and development, the people have some say through their elected officials on where and how the money is spent and which jobs are created. Infrastructure jobs can’t be sent overseas like what has happened with the tax cuts to corporations and the huge wave of outsourcing that followed the tax cuts. I’d rather trust the government to do this kind of thing…corporations have shown that they will use tax cuts not to create jobs, but to enrich the 1% who have already stolen most of the country from the rest of us..geez…
Here’s the indisputable proof…
Well…this one is pointed at all of you right wing idiots out there that say the OWS protesters are just a bunch of whiny losers that don’t know what they are protesting…according to a report out today done by the Congressional Budget Office…the non-partisan arm of congress that is charged with coming up with the cost of new legislation among other things…the income of the top 1% of people in this country has tripled….yep, tripled since 1979…with most of that growth coming after the Bush tax cuts in 2000 while the rest of the country’s workers income increased a paltry 80%….so, 300% to 80%…pretty easy numbers to understand even for the troglodytes on the right. How are you guys going to wave away this one? When you take into account the productivity gains over that same time period, real wages for the bottom 80% of us actually went down over the same time period….and the right wonders why the rest of us are so pissed off. It is just this kind of inequality where the top 1% takes no risks and has no risks…where they just sit back and rake in the cash through connections and rigging the system that is finally triggering a broad based revolt of the working people in this country….it’s about time…geez…
The republicans just don’t get it…
Well…I find it funny that ole Rick out of Texas is rolling out his “revolutionary” new flat tax plan to match up with ole Herm’s 999 plan and neither one of them understands that things have changed or are changing in this country….the media has started listening to this nonsense and the false equivalency that has rotted our media discourse is starting to be rolled back…and the American people are finally getting the truth behind these plans…that they are slanted to cutting taxes for the rich at the expense of everyone else. I hope the days of cutting taxes for the “job creators” who really aren’t are over….that the nonsense of giving more and more to business with the hope that they will create jobs will finally be reconciled with reality…that not one job will be created by tax cuts, that not one company will add one job unless the demand is there for the goods and services they produce, and the only way to create demand is by rising wages for the middle class. But, the repubs just don’t get it…they are still playing out of the 2010 playbook when no one was paying attention….now, with the OWS protests and a newly awakened media….there is shift back to reality based governance where facts have regained their superiority to the gut feelings that the right truly believes are equivalent….none too soon either…geez…
Republicans and the rule of law..
Well…just a short one on the ongoing pattern of the repubs that only believes that a law or agreement should be adhered to when it suits them. The latest example of this nonsense is the piling on that happened when Obama announced that all combat troops would be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year….and the republicans went nuts calling it a grave failure of diplomacy by Obama’s administration. I’m laughing right now with the absurdity of it all…after all, the agreement to withdraw the troops was negotiated and signed by ole GW….so now, all of the repub candidates and some others on the right are blaming this on Obama? And, they are proposing abrogating another agreement just for political points in an election? These people are the worst kind of panderers, people who will say anything to inflame their base, no matter the damage to the US’s international standing…just like the neocons did getting us into Iraq…it just proves that these folks have an inability to learn…or to live in a reality based world…geez…