Well…as I was watching the news as I do most nights, my heart broke a little with watching the footage of the police crackdown on the OWS protesters in Oakland, California. If you haven’t seen it, the protesters and police were faced off in downtown Oakland…the protesters standing in a group, not moving, not making any threats to the police, when one of the police shot a tear gas round at point blank range into the face of one of the protesters; knocking him to the ground and fracturing his skull. While this Iraq war veteran was lying on the ground, critically injured, some of the protesters gathered around him, trying to give him aid when one of the police, in the second row of their phalanx, behind barricades, and perfectly safe, tossed a “flash-bang” grenade into the people trying to provide medical attention. On the video, you can see this jack booted thug smirking as he pulls the pin and tosses the grenade; knowing full well that he could be doing great bodily harm to these American citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights. And, what has happened to this thug? The mayor of Oakland comes out and says that her police force acted to protect their safety. Oh, really, from what? Against unarmed protesters who are clearly not moving toward this thug? I am outraged and have had enough of the police thinking they are above the law, that they can abuse American citizens like the Egyptian citizens were terrorized and abused in Tahir Square…that the police have the power to “grant” us our constitutional rights and limit them in any way. All of us should be outraged at this abuse of power, at this usurpation of our rights…rights that are not limitable to what is convenient for the police but exist to protect us from this kind of behavior….geez…
October 27th
Well…another night and I was good except for a glass of wine with dinner so it looks like I’m going to feel okay today…at least for a while….I do have some things to feel good about…well…I have been pretty prolific lately and some of them have even been relatively lucid…but I know the economic one on Netflix was a little dry but I did need to exercise my brain and see if I could still remember the stuff I learned in college and in the 30 years I spent in business. Not sure if I can keep it up but I haven’t really been trying more than normal so it may be sustainable….not much to do today…it’s grocery run day and it is so sad that I look forward to that now…and I am going to continue to clean this place up….looks like there are showers in the forecast but I still have hope to get the ride in today…more later…
Okay…have to relay a little home weirdness that I saw when I pulled into the lot here today…there was a flock of over 20 turkeys just walking across the lot and on the lawn that really didn’t care that I was there….then. a few more of them came flying in over the row of trees that are out my slider….pretty cool to see…I wonder what they taste like?
Here’s today’s lyric: “say can I have some of your purple berries…yes, I’ve been eating them…six or seven weeks now, probably keep us both alive…”
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…
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?