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…
Monthly Archives: October 2011
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…
Some thoughts on Netflix…
Well…with all of the turmoil that is going on with Netflix and the giant mistakes they have made over the past few months, I thought a few comment on their management might be in order. As you know, the stock has been in free fall since the ceo, Reed Hastings, made the stupid decision to raise prices almost 60% and split the company into two parts, losing almost 8 billion dollars in shareholder value in the process. What I don’t understand is the lack of economic understanding of the market they operate in and the utter hubris of their decision making. If you know anything about economics and how markets operate, you know that in the early days of Netflix they were operating as consumers of marginal output…that is they were the only purchasers of content that the providers had already paid for as an addition to the normal channels like HBO and Starz, giving the content suppliers marginal revenue that standard economic theory says should be taken at any cost. And, until competitors come into the market, Netflix got a bargain on this content that they then built their streaming services around. But, what they missed is the fact that as more channels are available for content providers, the price will rise as marginal demand for the product increases. That is exactly what happened in this case and this was compounded by the fact that the supply side of the equation changed as well, limiting the amount of price increases that the market will bear. So, in every possible part of the economic equation, Reed and his cronies got it wrong and they are now paying for it by the company’s valuation plunging by almost 75%….it just looks like a karmic payback for trying to screw the customers that made them successful….couldn’t have happened to a worse bunch…
October 26th
Well…it was fun to get out for a while last night but the Wings stunk up the place for a second game in a row and I don’t know what is going on with them….maybe this is our season that we don’t make the playoffs…that is a thought I really don’t want to entertain…I was good when I got home again so I fell okay other that I was up at 5:30….and up and down all night…and no dreams other than a broken slider door in the house I was in that I had to fix with duct tape….yeah, I know,,,that one was not too interesting to me either….not much to do today…I am debating with myself whether to do the grocery run today or tomorrow but will probably wait…another month is coming to a close without any responses to the resumes and I am getting concerned that I will never work again….more later…
Here’s today’s lyric: “It must have been my lucky Thursday, your dad went on that spree…before the crew put out the fire, you hopped a bus to NYC…”
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…
October 25th
Well….another night but I did have a little fun going out for a couple with G….and I was good when I got home so i feel good today even with getting up at 3:11…I did get back to sleep for a while but I think there will be a nap necessary later….I do have things to do later today for a change..C is in town and we are going out to watch the Wings game and have a couple….it will be the first time since last season that I’ve been out to see a game and it is just better to do it in person than by text…other than that, not much to do today…..it is already almost 50 so it looks like the bike ride can happen early today unless it rains….wait, let me go look at the radar…maybe I won’t get to ride today..it looks like rain is setting up to the west and it will be raining most of the day…so maybe it will just be working out today…more later…
Okay…I did go out on the bike and misjudged the dry slot that was moving in so it was really cold and wet but not nearly as cold as the other day…it was nice getting the ride in but it looks like it is going to get progressively worse as the week goes on so I may have to adjust the schedule and try to tamp the guilt down that comes with not riding….fall is a new reality when it comes to the bike so I just have to accept it I guess….
Here’s today’s lyric: “I would love to tour the southland in a traveling minstrel show….I’m dying to be a star and make them laugh…sound just like a record on a phonograph…”
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…
Just some stuff..
Well…I wonder when the general public is going to wake up and get it that the repubs idea of fairness is to tax the poor and middle class while giving more and more breaks to the rich? The latest folly is ole Mitt’s idea of reforming the tax code by replacing it with a flat tax…and idea that came and went a long time ago that would be a tax cut for the rich while raising taxes on everyone else…just like ole Herm’s 999 plan. Why do the repubs hate the poor and middle class so much? That is evidenced here in Michigan by the scramble of the repubs to take away the last vestiges of the safety net by throwing people off welfare and limiting unemployment and food stamps for the newly poor. And those moves were supported by a sense of urgency, like the entire state will disappear if we don’t save a few million dollars by attacking the least of us. But, when it comes to cutting their own benefits to help with the state budget deficit…like the lifetime healthcare legislators get after just one term in office, that can wait until 2014 when most of this current crop of thieves will already be retired…just more and more of the “I’ve got mine, the hell with everyone else” attitude that has been the repubs mantra for the last thirty years….when are we going to get tired of this nonsense?
October 24th
Well…it was a boring Sunday but they all are so I shouldn’t be surprised….no dreams or anything else to report except that the sleep was crappy as always…but, today could be better, right? I sure hope so….not thinking right now so I’m going to go get coffee and read the papers…and that is all I have to do today….
Okay, I’m back but the coffee is not working as I had hoped…maybe the workout and bike ride will….there was one disheartening thing that I saw on the ride yesterday that I didn’t report….and for those of us here in Michigan it is not a welcome sight…the first pickup with a plow on the front….I really don’t need anything reminding me that winter is fast approaching…that was all too clear this morning when I got in the car and the windows were completely fogged up…I know the Mazda has that fatal flaw but I still don’t like being reminded of the coming changes…don’t want to have to warm it up every morning just going out for coffee…oh, well….
I am getting to the lyric before the ride today: “I am just a dreamer, but you are just a dream…you could have been anything to me…”
Quite a bad sports weekend…
Well…it’s a pretty bad sports weekend when all of the teams you follow but one lose. The Lions game just ended with a loss to The Falcons….looked like the same old Lions to me and the mistakes are starting to make me believe that they are not the real thing; just pretenders that might not even make it into the playoffs…and that is too bad, too, since they were so exciting at the start of the season..oh, well….then we have the Wings getting pummeled last night by the Caps but the good news is that it is only the 6th game of 82 and there is plenty of time to get things fixed…and they get to have a bad day every once in a while so I’m not going to get too upset about it. The really bad surprise was the beating that Man U took at home against Man City…it was their worst loss at home since I’ve been alive and, as you know, that is a long, long time. I am really kind of glad that the sports are done for the weekend…I don’t know how much more disappointment I can take…but, the race is till on and the last 25 or so laps should be fun to watch…so I’m going to go back to it….probably not more later…
I am kind of glad that Michigan didn’t play this weekend…couldn’t have taken another loss…