Business lack of responsibility

Since the end of the 1970s, corporate profits and share of wealth in the US have skyrocketed. This is largely due to the fact that worker productivity increased by almost a factor of 2 while wages stagnated. Businesses made money by not increasing workers' wages and demanding more work from them, all in the guise of staying "competitive."

Wages in Germany have risen 5 times faster than in the US during the same time period which is why the American middle class is shrinking while in Germany, middle class living standards continue to rise. The US has about the lowest rate of class mobility of any industrialized country in the world. mostly because of wage stagnation and short sighted corporations.

As far back as 1919, Henry Ford paid his workers the outrageous sum of $5 per day. His thinking, which is correct, was that if his company was going to be successful there needed to be people who could buy his cars. So by paying high wages he helped insure the success of his business. Modern business leaders apparently do not believe this and hoard their companies' money for themselves and the businesses themselves. They are like the dragon Fafner in Norse mythology who had this incredible treasure, stashed it in a cave and gobbled up anyone who came near.These same people whine about lack of consumer demand when they themselves are largely responsible for causing the situation about which they complain.

The idea of everyone sharing the wealth and that workers should be treated with respect no longer functions in corporate America and this inequality is further enhanced by laws and a tax structure that favor business and the wealthy over people who work for paychecks. The increasing concentration of wealth in the top 1-2% of the population is a symptom of the disease, and if the economy is to recover, this needs to turn around so that there are equal benefits for business and workers.

Companies like Verizon and Catepillar demand huge wage cuts from employees while at the same time racking up huge profits and executive pay increases. There is no "We" in this scenario. It is all "Me" in the person of the business and executive. Workers are no longer expected or allowed to share in the success of a business.They are disposable and all but worthless.

One of the single largest contributing factors to ongoing economic growth in a country is the fact that workers feel they have long term prospects where they are working and can plan for the future. Study after study and poll after poll reflect the reality that workers are insecure and do not feel secure enough in their jobs to even take vacations that are their right lest they be away and lose their jobs. The combination of declining wages and benefits and total lack of job security will continue to hold down economic recovery. Unless and until businesses realize that they themselves are largely responsible for this downturn and continued malaise, there will be no meaningful improvement in the economy.

No Surprise Here

The Pew Trust, I believe, summarized a study documenting the dissolution of the middle class in the United States. Since 2000 the information has been grim for anyone not in the 1% sector of wage earners. Respondents were queried and responded that it is much more difficult now to maintain their former middle class life style and very few had any optimism for the future. Since 1979-80 wages for virtually all jobs in the US have remained at a standstill, showing an increase of less than .5% per year since 1979. Yes, less than 1/2 of 1% wage increase in more than three decades. Unemployment is stuck at more than 8%, consumer spending is down and the economy is marooned on a reef of stagnation.

Looking at other sectors of the economy, what do we find? Increasing income disparity between most people and the top 1%. From controlling around 9% of the country's wealth in 1979 the 1%ers now control more than 25%. Corporate profits are at all time highs with tens of thousands of good paying jobs shipped overseas so corporations can show more profit, wages are being cut even as CEOs and boards increase their own compensation, shareholders demand quick profits at the expense of the middle class and long term economic prosperity, union jobs have drastically declined in 30 years. These blue collar people were always the backbone of economic growth in the US consumer economy. Corporations are sitting on trillions of dollars of capital and are unwilling to pass any gains on to workers or stimulate hiring despite being able to afford the wages. The consumer spending is stuck because companies are firing, governments are firing, wages are declining, unions are destroyed and all the while the corporate moguls are riding high.

It is painfully obvious what needs doing. But where is there a politician with the courage to say so? Certainly not the R/R ticket which is intent on railroading America into economic extinction and return the middle class to the horrors of 19th century capitalism. Middle class people who support the Republicans are dooming themselves and their kids to a faster decline in living standards. We are rapidly returning to a two class society: the Haves, as exemplified by the Republicans and their ridiculous presidential ticket, and the rest of the working people of this country who actually made it great.

Sad.

Little Paul tells fibs!

Well, here we have the pseudo Ayn Rand devotee espousing destruction of the federal government and abandonment of those who truly need help in order to help himself at his favorite trough: the federal government. The most recent blunder by the King of Cuts is he lied about taking money from the federal stimulus package. Seems that despite Paul denying for over two years he NEVER accepted or asked for any stimulus money that he actually did ask for two separate grants to be funded from the stimulus pool.

When confronted with his own letter, which was also acknowledged by the Wall Street Journal (gasp) and the Boston Globe, he fudged and made up a story that this letter was actually no different than asking for a flag for a constituent or some other heart felt favor from their favorite hypocritical phony deficit hawk.

Interesting about Ryan: he professes to be an avid follower of the ultra libertarian capitalist ideas of Ayn Rand; at least in so far as her ideas suit his agenda. Rand hated Reagan because she said that instead of having unfettered capitalism, he and his neocon pals rigged the tables in favor of business at the expense of the public. Also, Rand was a vociferous atheist who completely disavowed the phony conservative Christian ideals of the far right extremists. As a believer in the intellect of humanity, she saw no room for institutional superstition in any form. Ryan seems to ignore these key ideas of hers as he proselytizes for Christian based abandonment of Christian principles. As many conservatives or Convenience Christians who rail against people unlike themselves, Ryan is selective in the parts of Christianity he chooses to support and the philosophical precepts of Rand he chooses to accept. As a non-Christian I am not a huge reader of the Bible. But as I understand it, the Judeo/Christian ideals are based on responsibility to the tribe or society, showing charity to those in need and abjuring wealth for the sake of wealth. So, I seem to recall a saying something like it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Does Ryan and his billionaire pals not see a conflict with traditional JC ideals and how they propose to govern the country? Has there ever been a more anti-charitable duo than the Romney team in recent memory?

But I guess Ryan believes charity begins at home, which is why he had his paws out for the stimulus money.

Whining in the World of Republicans

Call up your WayBackMachine to the presidential race where John Kerry was a candidate. Although the US Navy decided that he indeed did earn a purple heart in Viet Nam, this did not deter the energy moguls in Texas from mounting, with mountains of money, a smear campaign against Kerry, saying that he did not deserve the medal. Some went so far as to say that he actually wounded himself in order to get a medal so that he could run for political office. The Republican Party fully endorsed this smear campaign and hammered  that "Swift Boat Veterans Against Kerry" were trying to save the country from a venous liar who wanted the big enchilada: the Presidency.

The fact that the medal citations had been a matter of public record for decades did not deter the guys from continuing on with lies; and this tactic, of discrediting a veteran, was considered honorable and correct by the Republican voters and Party across the country. So when Harry Reid makes a comment about Romney's tax paying history, this same groups of people get in a hissy fit for saying things that are  pure opinion and have no basis in fact. This one is an easy fix: Romney simply needs to release tax records going back 10 or 15 years to show what an upstanding citizen he is and that he paid his full share of taxes. The fact that he attempted to prevent even one year of his taxes from becoming public knowledge, should be enough to give any thinking person pause. Why so reluctant to show your taxes for one year? What are you hiding by refusing to release past returns?

The Obamas are wealthy and have displayed no reluctance to make their affairs public. So why will etch-a-sketch Mitt not pony up? Makes a body think the guy is hiding something.

Idiots in North Carolina

Well, let it never be said that the NC legislature cannot be bought or can ever be accused of making intelligent decisions. From the folks who brought you massive pollution from pig farmers run wild we now have a law, no, really, a law that says that sea levels are not rising; or at least not in North Carolina. Although rising sea levels are a well document fact from locations around the world from real scientists from many different countries making real scientific measurements using the scientific method, a developer in NC, who apparently employs the NC legislature as well as the governor, declared that sea levels are NOT rising in NC and that thousand upon thousands of scientists from around the world are using bogus information and flawed methods in making such statements.

Apparently, this developer owns lots of coastal land in NC and wants to start building like crazy. Well, this would mean that, if the state legislature were actually bright enough and honest enough to accept accepted scientific proof of rising sea levels, it would cost the state lots of money to upgrade sewage systems, roads and other insignificant items so that the state could be environmentally conscious and actually use accepted scientific measurements for these things.

So what we have is an entire state government passing a law for the benefit of a single developer. Never mind that when roads start washing out and houses and businesses get washed away the people of NC and the US will be on the hook for repairing all the damages that were entirely preventable. Republican political corruption at its best!

Family Values

I always find it interesting that the R/Cs who loudly proclaim that they espouse family values, whatever that means, have a narrow concept of that phrase. Take the illustrious Rick Snatorum: I sure don''t want him. "Devout catholic"; family values proclamations; 'pro life"; protect the children.

This guy came out defending the mishandling of the Penn State molestation. He essentially said that neither the coach, Paterno, or the U did anything wrong and that the Freeh investigation was totally off the mark in their findings. I guess it is OK for a football coach to molest young boys so long as the football team is winning games and generating lots of revenue. He really is a piece of work.

One Million Moms screamed at JC Penny for having Ellen DeGeneris as spokesperson. They felt that she was unfit to serve as a role model solely due to the fact that she is gay. To Penny's credit, they not only stood behind her in her position but ran adds showing families with same sex partners for what they are: loving, caring adults raising kids in a safe and secure home environment. But I guess those conditions in a family are not good enough for this women's group due, again, to the same sex couples as parents. Never mind what is best for the kids in a stable home environment; we need to be dogmatically correct. What a bunch of zealots.

When will people realize that not everyone is the same? That equal does not mean identical? That strictures against same sex relationships in the Judeo-Christian tradition are do to the ignorance of the authors who had no idea of what psychology is and that there is a human component called genetics that developed over tens of millions of years that create the sexual preferences of certain persons. Nature is replete with same sex attachments and why should people be any different as we are governed by the same process of evolution as all other living things on the planet. To deny this genetic reality is ignorance and to insist that all people MUST be the same or they are evil, is an idea produced by  wayward minds.

Family values? I think not.

More guns=more innocent people die

OK. So here we are, back in CO and a gun owner decides to kill a bunch of people and in the process also booby traps his apartment so that more people may die in addition to the ones he shot in the theater.

As usual, gun nuts responded with the usual drivel about the shooting would not have been so bad had, in the words of one Texas congressman, "everyone had been packing in the theater." Typically, there is no mention of the fact that automatic weapons, assault rifles, were used in the attack. There is a reason why these weapons are called assault weapons: they are made for the military to assault other armies that also have assault rifles. These are not sporting or hunting weapons; rather, they are weapons specifically designed to provide overwhelming fire power in a combat situation.

There is absolutely no justification for any private citizen to own such a weapon. If one is a hunter, than a rifle or a shotgun is reasonable. For home protection, maybe a handgun kept in the home is fine. What is not fine, is that anyone can buy these military weapons at any time and go on a rampage. The Second Amendment does state that a well armed militia is essential for national defense. It does not say that every person is entitled to posses weapons of mass killing power.

The right to bear arms is fine in context. Had the authors of the Constitution seen what egregious and offensive deeds were done using this amendment as justification, they would most likely be horrified. When the amendment was written America was a frontier country with no real standing army. The idea of having arms for protection and in the event of a foreign invasion made sense at the time.

We are no longer living in a frontier country and are in no danger of foreign invasion. The purpose of the amendment has all but disappeared. However, it is still valid but should not be a license to kill.

The sale of such military weapons needs to be outlawed. Weapons classified for military or law enforcement bodies should not be made available to the general populace. Again, I am not talking about  weapons for individual hunting or in home protection. We have gone so far overboard in the crazy extension of the Second Amendment, someone for the NRA could probably make a case for every citizen having tactical nuclear weapons or  stocks of biological or chemical weapons.

I find it interesting that the folks who defend this profligate ownership of military weapons say they are adherents to the strict meaning of the Constitution, with Scalia actually saying he has an 18th century dictionary next to him when deciding constitutional questions. Yet clearly, "arms" at the time the Constitution was written referred only to muzzle loading rifles and pistols. Clearly, these are the only weapons the founders had in  mind when writing the second amendment and could be the basis for weapon ownership now.

But unlike the gun nuts, I feel this is defeating the spirit, but not the literal meaning of the amendment. Times change and interpretations of the Constitution change as to what each amendment actually means in a contemporary context. The obstinate and ill considered position that all Americans are entitled to any and all weapons in the world is ludicrous and society needs to be nuanced in what the Second Amendment says.

Or, is it OK for the Supreme Court to state that only single shot muzzle loading weapons are the only ones protected by the second amendment?

Turnaround is Fair Play

Senator Patty Murray of Washington has a good plan to counter Republican obstinacy when it comes to the Bush tax cuts. Instead of fighting for a more equitable plan of extending the cuts for those making less than $250k per year and canceling the recession causing cuts for the very wealthy, her idea is to allow ALL the cuts to expire as they are written to law. After January 1, the cuts for the middle class could then be reinstated apart from those of the wealthy. This, after all, is essentially what the Republicans used to extend all the cuts previously. Now, of course, they are whining about class warfare and punishing the middle class. The use bloviations of the champion bloviators. When the Demos use their own tactics the babies cry "FOWL" that you do what we did!

This coupled with the mandated cuts put into law by the Republicans last year because they refused any compromise that was mature on the debt ceiling, will automatically decrease spending, much of it in non-social welfare programs; and increase revenue that should never have been cut in the first place. Remember that when Bush and the R/Cs made their budget breaking tax cuts? The treasury had a surplus for the preceding several years. Then came the cuts. Then came Bush's wars which were not included in any budget/revenue plan. These two ill conceived peccadillos were financed "off the books" which immediately led to massive deficits. After eight years of fiscal stupidity and budgetary dogma that continued to degrade the finances of the US, Obama was elected to right the situation.

Before he was even installed in office, R/Cs in the senate and house were focused on one thing only: make Obama a one term president no matter what. That no matter what included sandbagging ANY proposal that was put forward by the Democrats, regardless of merit. This intransigence and obstinacy prevented andy meaningful legislative action for the last two years. The single minded focus of making Obama look bad no matter what happened to the country, is largely responsible for the less than ideal economic situation we are in now. The stimulus, which was quite successful in preserving existing jobs, and the bailout of Chrysler and GM which allowed thousands of good paying jobs to be kept from being exterminated by R/C indifference to the struggling middle class, was really too small to generate a large number of jobs; jobs that would have gone a long way towards improving the economy of the country.

Obama's lack of leadership in the health care fight and indifference to the mid-term elections were disastrous for the American people. Hopefully, he learned his lesson: That a person cannot reason with zealots. Overwhelming force is the only tactic that will work with closed minded people who hate based on a persons name and skin color.

Interesting bits

John McCain calls out Michelle Bachman, who, you may remember, was a one time potential presidential candidate, for yet another of her weirdo conspiracy theories. Can it be that there is a glimmer of intelligence surfacing in the Republican party? Time will tell.

Mitt says he was retired retroactively from Bain as of 1999. Too bad the SEC has filings showing he was sole owner, CEO, Chairman and who knows what else until 2002.  Lying to the SEC in a felony. Could it be Mitt is following in the footsteps of the illustrious Richard (I am not a crook) Nixon? Interesting.

Rep. Gosar, who unfortunately represents the district where I live, has said the health care in the US has been nationalized. Quite a statement considering that people will be buying health insurance from PRIVATE COMPANIES. Republicans are great at telling lies, but, as usual, do not bother with actual facts. Rather, they rely on bumper sticker slogans.


Sheriff Arpaio, also an Arizona denizen, claims he has proof that Obama's birth certificate is a Forgery. He and his "posse", no joke with the wording, are convinced that 50 years ago, this conspiracy was launched in Hawaii, Kenya and the US. Maybe I can tap into the guys who did that for some lottery numbers?

Maybe it's the heat.

Forum of Idiocy #2

These so-called candidates would, as I said, also abolish the EPA. Think about that. This is a Republican initiated program started by Richard Nixon. Since its inception, air quality across the country has improved dramatically. Particulate matter has been reduced by a great amount. Tens of thousands of people, mostly elderly, the very young and those with compromised immune systems, would have died sooner rather than later were it not for these pollution regulations.

Additionally, water quality has shown steady improvement since the EPA was founded. Rivers that were toxic and flammable are now largely capable of sustaining aquatic life and even in Lake Erie, where in the 60s and 70s it was completely unsafe for human contact, people can now safely swim and boat with out fear of chemical burns, infection from untreated sewage and other fun holiday benefits. Upsate NY saw one of the worst sites in the country, the Love Canal. Tens of thousands of toxic waste was dumped in the canal over the years instead of being properly disposed of. Unborn kids dying in utero, kids with cancers and leukemia, forced evacuations of entire neighborhoods.

Gas mileage standards substantially decreased our dependence on foreign oil and will continue to do so so long as the bar continues to be raised. These standards were a big part of reducing air pollution and preventing people from early deaths.

Acid rain has been greatly reduced. This was largely a by-product of dirty coal burning power plants in the west and mid-west that discharged chemicals into the air which floated eastward. When mixed with precipitation, the resulting rain was more acidic than tomato juice. This resulted in damage to forests, sterilization of lakes in upstate NY due to the fact that the water was too acidic to support life. This result carried into lakes as far away as Scandinavia.

Now think about abolishing the agency. It was created to address problems of people dying, children getting horrendous diseases from industrial dumps, killing of the elderly with poisoned air, keeping us dependent on foreign oil, often from our so-called "allies" that supported the 9/11 terrorists with money from our oil purchases. And these dopes want to abolish the EPA?

More on these extremist right-wing demagogues tomorrow.

Forum of Idiocy

The name is German and simply means the politics of reality or the reality of politics; here we will address both concepts regarding the real agenda of the current crop of Conservative/Republican politicians, their funders and supporters and what is truly at stake for the American public.

To give an example: At a local political "forum" there were several candidates for the C/R senate seat being vacated by Jon Kyl. Each was trying to outdo the others in how righteous he was and what needed to be done to get the country "back on track."

Now, you need to think about a candidate who puts a bible on the table in front of him and actually says that he will govern according to his Christian principles. Another, actually all, called for the abolition of the EPA with all environmental decisions left to individual states. The Department of Education was also to be abolished with only local schools setting individual standards for what the students could study and how they would be graded as to subject competency and performance.

Taxes were to be lowered for all rich people, governments cut still further, Medicare was to get the axe and of course, Obamacare is to be abolished with nothing, no programs at all, to replace it. There is to be a tall fence on the Mexican border to keep out illegals, voter fraud is to be pursued to the ends of the earth despite the fact that there was not a single candidate who could say that there had actually been any voter fraud in Arizona in recent memory.

Let's start with the bible routine. The Constitution specifically forbids any linking whatsoever between a church and the state. The reason for this is the experiences of several centuries in Europe where churches amassed enormous wealth, huge land holdings and were quite literally kingmakers. (Much like the huge evangelical churches of today.) Wary of the destructive model of a religion having power over or co-jurisdiction with the state as a political entity, the gentlemen who composed the constitution, based on secular humanist philosophy, knew exactly what they were about when they forbad the government being influenced by any religious body. For a candidate campaigning for public office to pledge to follow the tenets of any religion as a way of conducting his tasks as an elected representative is anti-Constitutional and as such, blatantly un-American.

To follow the tenets of a religion while legislating is a return to the old ways of government where only certain people could even hope to have a decent life. This is so in the caste system in India, in the Puritan colonies of colonial America and the southern States before and after the Civil War. And it is in danger of happening again if religion is allowed to trump reason, dogma is allowed to trump science, church based qualifications replace actual ability and a person's religion says where he or she may go to school, work and live.

More tomorrow on another of these geniuses at work.