Bernie disappointed

I don't donate to political campaigns... because sooner or later, a politician will always disappoint me. Bernie did when he gave way to Joe Biden in the 2019 Democratic primary. I have 2 theories of why Bernie gave way:

1. Bernie's asshole quotient isn't high enough to attack his opponents as needed to win a political campaign at this level.

or

2. Bernie decided he didn't actually want to be president... possibly his heart condition was a more significant warning call than he signaled to his campaign or supporters.


Regardless, he let down everyone who donated, volunteered or spoke on his behalf.

And now, weeks after Bernie's acquiescence, in the middle of a rampant protests against the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police, Bernie has been largely out of sight. Another disappointment... :(

The COVID-19 economy is Alive!

To put this rant in context, we are in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic (recall pandemic means entire planet is affected) caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. U.S. intelligence services had been warning "POTUS" DJT for months that the growing epidemic in China would become a major problem in the U.S. In those same months, DJT and Republicans raised no alarms to the American public nor did they make any preparations for the oncoming epidemic. In fact, one Republican warned rich donors of a possible economic downturn and he, along with other public servants sold stocks ahead of the recent stock market decline.

It wasn't until March 13th that DJT declared a state of emergency... after tens of people died in Washington State, after hundreds of Americans tested positive, after the lack of testing became an international embarrassment and even now, we do not know the extent of the problem due to lack of infection data... So the Administration was seemingly taking the problem seriously (I can't even talk about the lie filled clownish daily Coronavirus media events staring "POTUS DJT").

But with the past two days, three media statements:

Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick: 

“No one reached out to me and said as a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren. "And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.”

DJT tweeted/said:

WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!

“We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself”

From Buzzfeed:

President Donald Trump suggested Monday that he may encourage businesses to reopen and encourage people to stop isolating “very soon,” contradicting public health experts who say businesses may need to stay closed and workers stay home for several months to help contain the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s bad, and obviously the numbers are going to increase with time and then they’re going to start to decrease,” the president said at his daily coronavirus press conference, before quickly pivoting to say, “We’re going to be opening our country up for business because our country was meant to be open and working with others.”

DJT wants the economy 'working' again... because his rich friends and donors are losing money from falling stock prices and most of the Trump brand hotels are closed and losing money from stay-at-home and social-distancing recommendations.

My issue with so called 'getting the economy working again':

1. The economy is working. (Most) Essential goods and services are being produced and delivered on a timely basis. Shortages are due to panic buying and not a supply problem. The shortages of protective equipment for medical staff are the result of larger global production trends - outsourcing all production to cheapest producing countries. This could be addressed by invoking the Defense Production Act to force private industry to make essential goods/services.

2. The stock market is not the economy. Economies exist and function without stock markets so stock prices are a moot point in terms of economic activity.

3. Economies are emergent properties of human interactions. So long as two or more people exist, an economy exist from the exchange between them. Neither epidemic nor pandemic endanger the existence and/or function of economies.

4. People engage in exchange to benefit each other; to improve their lives; to improve their standard of living; to live longer and safer. If stock prices are the reason to justify the end of life-saving social-distancing, then stock markets are endangering people's lives; stock markets are doing the opposite of what economies exist to deliver... stock markets are anti-economic. Stock markets should either be banned from trading during the duration of the emergency or perhaps eliminated altogether for the benefit of humanity. [A standard debate question has long been "Has religion been a benevolent or malevolent influence on mankind?" ... A much more important and relevant question would be "Have stock markets been a benevolent or malevolent influence on mankind?"]

Legal equivalents

campaign spending : free speech : corporate personhood (Burwell v. Hobby Lobby) :: 
free speech advocacy of gun ownership : NRA : terrorist organization

Wasteful capitalism

Stuart Varney of Fox Business Network (sorry) and his guest John Lonski were railing about a Fox News Poll where 34% of respondents think the rich do not pay enough taxes.

At some point Lonski said:

".....if you start taxing this wealth...may have the unwanted effect of reducing the incentive of people that are very talented and very rich to go ahead, expand their businesses, and make jobs and drive the economy higher."

My snarky comment:

But those very talented poor people... they're just pigeon poop on the sidewalk. There's no benefit to incentivizing them to work hard to improve their lives and the lives of their families and neighbors.

But I really want to emphasize how wasteful the American economy and culture really is. Amy Goodman interviewed Albert Woodfox a former political prisoner who spent over 43 years in solitary confinement in American jails. Watch and admire the dignity, grace, astonishing strength of this man. During his youth in the United States of America, it was more important to control this young man by locking him up than growing his strengths and talents; talents that could have advanced the nation economically and culturally. We are jailing young people in the prime of their life. Then our current 'Secretary of Education' Betsy DeVos actually claims American schoolchildren may benefit from less investment in their education. 

Now contrast the lack of investment in American youth to little gossip blurbs about Kim Kardashian's kid's lavish birthday party or Beyonce's kid at a fashion show. This encapsulates the problem with the current economy. It's a system that allows the largely poor population go hungry, uneducated and often imprisoned while the rich indulge in luxuries that add no meaningful value to their lives. And rich people are rich because they lie, steal and cheat the wages of the working poor.

So back to tour treatment of young people, I'm reminded of the slogan of the United Negro College Fund: A mind is a terrible thing to waste... we are and have wasted the minds of generations of Americans. We can do better.

A Trump metaphor

This came to my mind when I read a C&L post:

Trump and his peeps are the dung beetles of today's culture. They are burrowing deep into the middens of history and recycling its least humanistic ideas for modern consumption. As receptacles of the rejected, middens are repositories of death and disease. The Resistance has the crucial role of defending the U.S. and the larger global community from the toxins unearthed by DJT & Co. Ideally, his influence can be contained, destroyed and if possible, immunized against.

response:

Dung beetles have a constructive purpose . . . GOParasites don't.

my response:

Indeed, dung beetles recycle organic matter from organic waste back into the ecosystem. DJT & peeps are recycling the worst tendencies of humanity. Everyone needs to heed the words of Martin Niemöller: 

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews [asylum seekers], and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew [an asylum seeker].
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

How do the GWB and DJT administrations differ?

Based on the economic/social 'shocks' described by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine:

GWB had the 'civility' to wait for economic/social 'shocks' to occur before triggering his anti-democratic agenda. In particular, September 11 to change the balance of power in the Middle East and any number of domestic power grabs.

Every incident of DJT operating outside of 'normality' is DJT throwing bombs to purposefully manufacture economic/social 'shocks': travel ban, trade wars, 'good people on both sides', Dropping Paris Climate Agreement, dropping Iran Nuclear Deal, meeting Kim Jong-un, splintering asylum seeking families... As this is happening, DJT's Cabinet and the Republican Congress are destroying consumer/environmental protection, civil rights protection, and stacking the courts against democratic governance. And that's only the start.

posted as comment as C&L

It's just the capitalistic way

Digby pointed out the Trump administration is selling American foreign policy for private gain. The Trump cabal sees it as an extension of capitalism - profiting from the sale of a sought after service.

Keith Ellison on Democracy Now!

Keith Ellison was interviewed on Democracy Now!

He doesn't frame the problem exactly as I do: concentration of power. But he does link concentration of financial resources to political power and that's rare for a politician. It's worth a viewing.

A bit from it:

These huge corporations that give executive compensation with no bearing, no connection at all, to the people who actually make the products on the ground. 

And this is hurting our economy. And it’s—and you asked where it all ends, Juan. You know what? It doesn’t end well, because what it means is that they use all that extra money to buy political influence in Washington, to try to influence people like me to give them even more benefits.

DJT's 'negotiating style'

Fareed Zakaria said this on CNN: "Trump’s negotiating style seems far from being this masterous strategic approach that he's often claimed it is," Zakaria told Anderson Cooper on "Anderson Cooper 360." "It seems somewhat impulsive."

My comment:

In the distant possibility that DJT and KJU actually meet face to face, I predict DJT will attempt a jovial gab-fest followed by grovelling at KJU's feet for any sliver of a 'deal' that he can take to the cameras to announce as the 'best deal in the history of the world' followed by a demand for the Nobel Peace Prize. 

'Businessman' DJT didn't make money through 'deal making'; he made money by using mafia-like tactics to swindle investors, contractors and customers alike. He doesn't deal, he uses fixers like Michael Cohen to strong arm.

Arms 'Marketing'

Short video of William Hartung at TRNN describing how the MIC profits from war and government policy. My comment:

William Hartung hit the nail right square on the head. A popular meme spouted by many pro-capitalist economists is that in free markets, market forces (consumer spending/consumption) drives what gets produced. But somehow, these same economists never examine the 'market forces' of the planned military arms economy (created by governments, especially by the U.S. government). The planned military economy creates forces of lobbyists and special interests who advocate for constant war and continuous arms race. Instead of buying food, childcare, medical care, education and intact ecosystem for our children and grandchildren, American taxpayers are buying updated nuclear weapons and other military hardware, war game exercises, ill-will from hundreds of foreign military bases and global instability from waging and fomenting war. These are economic decisions and American voters need to understand the spending priorities of their government in that light. 

Another useful tool maybe to redefine what economies are. The word 'economy' has Greek roots meaning house or home. The common definition of economy is focused on production/consumption of consumer goods for the purpose of generating profit, a far cry from house/home. A much better definition would be self-organizing and self-sustaining systems of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services that promote the well-being of all participants. This would automatically make some sectors of the modern economy 'uneconomic' because they do not promote well-being... the entire offensive arms/military industrial sector.

Name of piece: Code Pink Conference: The Arms Industry Hides Behind Euphemisms (December 29, 2017)

Both are scary

Eddie Baza Calvo is Governor of Guam. He posted a video of his call with DJT after DJT threatened North Korea with 'fire and fury' to which they said their next missile test would be aimed at Guam which hosts multiple American military bases.

DJT said this to Gov. Calvo: “I can tell you this — tourism, you’re going to go up like 10-fold with the expenditure of no money so I congratulate you.”

... as if he's using the North Korea dispute as a way to generate free media attention to his overpriced vacation resort. This when he's also demanding Mitch McConnell 'get back to work and put Repeal & Replace, Tax Reform & Cuts and a great Infrastructure Bill on my desk for signing.' To DJT, POTUS is a figurehead whose only responsibility is to lounge in front of a television for positive media from Fox News, make a few public appearances/statements/tweets at his leisure and sign anything a Republican legislature can get to his desk. He has no responsibilities to setting or selling policy. Sad!

And if DJT weren't sad enough, Gov. Calvo said, “As an American citizen I have never felt more safe or so confident with you at the helm... With all the criticism that’s going on over there, from a guy that’s being targeted, we need a president like you.”

I hope for the sake of the people of Guam, their Governor was exercising impeccable manners and speaking from his heart.

Regulation is the exercise of power

Comment at TRNN:

Regulation is a tool and exercise of power. There will always be winners and losers whenever something is regulated... so regulation tends to further empower the already powerful. Much of regulation is related to control of information - this video is about information pertaining to drug safety. Safety regulations also involve information in that public knowledge (information) would be a source of public pressure to correct violations or improved consumer confidence in a service or product. To resolve the constant calls for regulation & deregulation (there's no difference if government is involved), transparency gives power to individuals (worker & consumers choose their employers & consumption with full knowledge).  

BTW, regulation & deregulation is not bad in itself. It's bad because they concentrate power and power is the root of much evil.

Similar comment at Truthout:

Regulation are tools of the powerful. In the rare occasions the larger public has more power, they are written to benefit the public. Unfortunately, more often than not, the rich have more power and they both rewrite regulation *and* change the rules of enforcement to benefit themselves. A major tactic is secrecy and control of information, both enemies of democracy. Transparency and informed choice gives power to the voter/buyer, not the candidate/seller.

Political hypocrisy

Examples of hypocrisy in the political sphere. All concern the Republican Party. [Note: I do not support the Democratic Party although I tend to have progressive positions. Spotlighting Republican hypocrisy does not let Democrats off the hook.]

POTUS DJT's Justice Department is threatening to withhold federal funding if state and/or local governments fail to comply with federal laws... What happened to the Republican Party's respect for local control/governance?

***

Comment at a C&L post about Ted Cruz blaming impending government shutdown on Democrats:

The ultimate hypocrite. He and his party don't believe in the Constitution. They use the law to defeat the spirit of the Constitution (promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity) to enrich themselves and the financial elites. They claim to be Christians yet they don't follow the Golden Rule often attributed to Jesus (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you). Just as Christianity is not about self interest, neither is patriotism promoting your best interest at the expense of your fellow citizens. 

BTW, an excellent example is in the NPR story about military families needing food aid to feed themselves.

***

Comment at C&L post where DHS head, General John Kelly, says "If lawmakers do not like the laws that we enforce — that we are charged to enforce, that we are sworn to enforce — then they should have the courage and the skill to change those laws, otherwise, they should shut up and support the men and women on the front lines.":

Everyday your party works to cut military pensions and Social Security benefits that support veterans and their families; everyday your party works to cut VA funding to give the rich tax cuts; everyday your party rants about repealing Obamacare which many veterans' families rely on; everyday your party wants more guns on the street that threaten the lives of veterans, law enforcement and everyone else. Practically every word on this video was disrespectful to the people you claim to serve.

Where Your Taxes Go

An article at Truthout about how taxes are spent. In the interest of transparency, we should know this and an even more fine grain breakdown.

Owner rights

It seems to me that Trump's budget director, Mick Mulvaney, is of the opinion he and his socioeconomic class 'owns' the taxes paid by American workers to the government. My comment:

There is a presumption among Mulvaney and his ilk that ownership confers additional/special rights. Unfortunately, they've influenced legislators and judges to their side with court rulings like Citizens United which give owners additional rights of personhood through corporate proxies. The 'owners' responsible for the financial collapse of 2007/8 are protected from prosecution. Contrast this to low income and especially low income minorities who own very little and are prosecuted and jailed at much higher rates for less egregious crimes. 

Mulvaney is just expressing this doctrine more openly - owners control everything - wages, profits, spending, workers' health, workers' rights, workers' votes. everything. They should keep in mind what happened to Arthur William Hodge and the French Revolution.

The current administration really needs to figure out who owns what (American public owns the public lands) and who governs what (elected officials and unelected civil servants) and who's direction (voters).

Entitled politicians

An Oklahoma Republican, Markwayne Mullin, actually said taxpayers do not pay his salary. Instead, representing his constituents is a 'service' he provides.

IMHO, this is deserves to be filed in the dictionary under 'entitlement'.

Capitalism - entitlement to everything (profits, wages, labor, taxes, subsidies, infrastructure, public services) workers produce and pay for.

Honest and Open New EPA Science Act

Comment at Crooks and Liars post describing the Honest and Open New EPA Science Act which was 'to inhibit regulations based, in part, on confidential or proprietary raw data.'

The entire premise of the Republican anti-environment stance is their money and power will shield/protect them from the negative impacts of their policies. For the sake of humanity, we desperately need them to learn they are not unique among humans. They are just as susceptible to the pollution they allow to spew into the air and water.

Choke on some pollution indeed.

Press failure

Comment at Crooks and Liars with video clip of Sean Spicer 'gaslighting' the press:

I blame the press for the sad state of affairs. Right wing news grew, profited and flourished under the failure of the mainstream press to contain their lies and doublespeak through benign neglect. Now we have a press secretary whose starting premise is a half truth which he follows with a ninety degree pivot to a full lie which rotates in a different direction to increase the base of the lie then he turns back around to accuse the press of misdirecting/misleading. Even a partial description of the spin is dizzying. 

I'm tired of DJT and company telling me what 'the real story is' and what's important. I want the truth.

Tax Protest

I just spent hours fighting with my tax return - and I have an easy one! There is no good reason why the IRS, who already has the majority of your income/tax status information, cannot automatically generate every tax payer's tax bill; your credit card company sends you a bill every month of purchases made from an enormous variety of vendors/sellers. The IRS should be ably to generate an annual tax bill to make our lives easier. I suggest all taxpayers go back to mailing in our tax forms (even when prepared online - just get the hard copy) in protest until they comply.

BTW, there are a number of companies that do some free tax prep but you need to give your information to a private company to use the service. The IRS already has your information - they are unlikely to sell it for profit.

Update: "Imagine filing your income taxes in five minutes — and for free." Except there are moneyed interests who lobby heavily against it.

Beware models

Economist Dean Baker was interviewed on TRNN about the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. He mentions economic models and their predictions: 

So, first off, I'd just point out they've been wrong in the past. The other point I'd make is that to my view there's very little risk in probing, in the sense, let's get the unemployment rate lower, and we don't have any models that say inflation just shoots up. So, let's say they're right. 4.7% is the right number, and they foolishly listened to me and let the unemployment rate fall to 4.3% or something like that. Well, the models say that inflation would rise very gradually. We're currently at 1.7% by the measure they use. It might rise after six months, a year, to 2%. That's not a big deal.

The points I want to illustrate is (1) the existence of economic models and (2) they are used to drive economic policy. But the usefulness of any model is predicated on the accuracy of its predictions and based on how poorly the economy functions for most workers, these models are terribly ineffectual. 

[Warning: I am not an economist. The following are my opinion only.]

One major flaw of the most popular economic models is they presume capitalistic principles. And as anyone who ever listens to Richard Wolff would know, capitalism is notoriously unstable, prone to repeated boom and bust cycles. I prefer to liken it to simple predator-prey relationships whose models have a similar boom and bust trend with the distinct possibility of complete bust in that both predator and prey species die out. If my hypothesis is true and economic models are based on predator-prey dynamics, then the underlying assumptions of these models are just plain wrong! It is well past time for the economics discipline to determine the universal rules of economics so they and we can actually have accurate models.

See my earlier writings for more of my thinking on this matter.