Angry white men

Wonderful article in Bloomberg today. Hopefully the Bloomberg source means nobody thinks this is some liberal rag. The article got me thinking. 

I would posit that Republicans don't care at all about many things they claim to care about. 


Yes, I just called them liars. Virtually everything out of their mouths is a lie. And it is surprisingly consistent from right wingers to the few moderates left. What the GOP really cares about is plutocracy, wherein the Elite class of extremely wealthy and large corporations are favored over all else. 

Yes, they are favored over GDP growth, they are favored over deficit spending, and they are certainly favored over any care at all for normal middle-class people.In nominating Mitt Romney, the ultimate Plutarch, they have shown their true colors.

I know you think I'm being hyperbolic. I assure you I am not. It is a simple exercise to prove that the rich and large corporations are the only thing Republicans care about by and large. Most everything they say is a diversionary hand waving lie, without which they could never get elected. Very few Republicans are spared from this analysis. The proof is not in their words, but in their actions.

To wit...

#1 Republicans talk endlessly about the deficit, and act as if it is a entirely the creation of the policies of the left. They clearly don't care about it though from their behavior. The GOP explodes the deficit whenever they are in control. George W Bush is the prime mover here of late. Truly it is the Democrats who are fiscally responsible - Barack Obama the saint of deficit constraint. Just look at this chart from the non-partisan Congressional OMB:

#2 Republicans don't care about the middle-class. This is almost universally true, despite their tortured attempts at logical arguments in support of the middle-class. One has to actually keep the middle-class from sinking too far into oblivion if one is the get re-elected, but the genius of the GOP is the use of Social Issues, and the bigotry and hatred of large swaths of angry white men (mostly in the South), to convince people to vote Republican against their own best self interests.

Again, the GOP only cares about turning America once again into a Plutocracy - policies to empower the wealthy ruling class and large corporations at the expense of everyone else. Small business and middle-class Americans - phew - who gives a sh*t.

Trickle down economics is the embodiment of this slight of hand (aka Bullsh*t) economic policy that robs the middle-class in favor of the wealthy and large corporations (which are also considered wealthy individuals after all "Corporations are people my friend" from our robotic friend in the magic underwear). 

Here is the result of 30 years of trickle down insanity. It is a shrewd double cross of GOP voters, who don't seem to notice, but at least they feel better that their institutions protect their god (who you'd think wouldn't need protecting, he's omnipotent after all right?), their endless supply of guns, and their institutions discriminate against non-whites and gays.

Now we learn from Bloomberg that the GOP policies on start-ups are also anti-small-business. Why am I not surprised? Mitt Romney, by the way, is not a business man, he's a financier who played Monopoly with other people's money and other people's companies. He's a Private Equity guy, not a job creator who comes up with a product or service and does anything it takes to bring it to market. That's why his plans for small business are so tangential to anything resembling an idea that might work.

His tax cuts are to further the inequality in the chart above and if he's elected I fear I (and many millions like me) may never have enough financial security to retire or healthcare even if we do.

Now I'm an angry white man - although for a different reason.

Who's waging class warfare?

This is a question to which I find the answers to be very interesting.

This is a study conducted by Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School, and Dan Ariely of Duke University.

They asked a cross-section of Americans the following question:

"What would you like the distribution of wealth to be in America?"

Here are the results of that question in a graph...

This group of Americans think the top 20% of earners should own 35% of the wealth of the country - a capitalist, yet still mostly egalitarian view of wealth distribution.

The study then asked this same group of Americans this second question:

"What do you think the actual distribution of wealth is in America?"

Here is the resulting answer in a graph...

Again, this group of Americans seems to realize that we are not an egalitarian society, and that free market capitalism does skew wealth toward the top. No value judgement, just a question of perception of reality.

Here is the actual distribution of wealth in the US.

As a member of the 10%, I consider myself fortunate, but also deeply disturbed - especially at a time with rising debt and the lowest taxes since 1950 - that the middle-class is at a tipping point. And if the middle-class falls into ruin, so follows the country. We simply cannot sustain our economy selling only to the top 20%. Something to ponder the next time we hear from Republican lawmakers and pundits that the Democrats are fomenting class warfare against the rich. As Warren Buffet once said, 

"The only class warfare going on in the US is the rich-class waging war against everyone else, and the rich are winning."

Indeed.

To what degree is Romney lying?

Mitt Romney lies.

That is an indisputable fact. The question is, will his campaign lies hurt his election to the presidency? 


Perhaps. 


American voters expect a certain amount of stretching the truth from political candidates  - within limits. Romney seems to violate those limits daily. His first campaign ad of the race vs. Obama contained a blatant lie.


Romney's ad claimed the President said the following: "If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose."


What the president actually said was this, 

"The McCain campaign actually said, and I quote, if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose".  

This led to a field day among comedians, who deliberately took Romney out of context, in the same fashion in which Romney had misquoted Obama. The results are pretty funny.

"You have to have positions on issues that last longer than this [brandishes an Etch-a-Sketch]"

- Newt Gingrich, 2012 GOP Presidential Candidate

But seriously, do we really want a President who seems to lie so easily? And what's more stupefying, is that he clearly lies on issues that are trivial, and on items that are clearly verifiably false.

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My own view is that Romney has a character flaw. He is a "pleaser" - a man with fungible core principles that he can wield and mold at any time, to any audience, to say what they want to hear. One must do this kind of lying if a) your real beliefs are deeply unpopular, or b) if the audiences expectations are so different than your own beliefs. Either way, a President of the most powerful country in the world cannot be such a bald-faced liar. This character flaw is deep-rooted, and is why Romney constantly suffers the barbs from the ideological left and right that he is a "flip-flopper". He is. Flip-floppng is an unavoidable symptom of trying to please everyone, all the time - a physical impossibility.

"Mitt Romney is a well-oiled weather vane"

- John Huntsman, 2012 GOP Candidate 

But the real debate; the one that should consume all who wonder about - and are somewhat fearful of - a Mitt Romney presidency, is to what degree Romney is now lying and what will he actually do if elected? Will he revert to the moderate that some argue he is? Or will he actually do all the radical right-wing cutting and slashing of the Federal government that he is now campaigning on with fervor?


Does he really believe we should "cut, cap, and balance" the federal budget? His most fervent supporters certainly believe he is committed to cutting, even if, as he says in his own words, that doing so will throw the US into a "recession or depression, so I won't do that, of course".


This question of how Romney will act if elected is the key issue troubling swing voters who might consider voting for Romney. We should hope this issue consumes 10's of thousands of swing voters, as Romney has a moderate record as governor of Massachusetts (a moderate state), yet presents a completely different image on the campaign. This poses a huge dichotomy for voters who must decided who he is with regard to his campaign promises - which are far, far from moderate. 


Why is this important?

If Romney does what he clearly says he will do in his presidential campaign, and what those Tea Party types who are now his supporters will insist he does if elected, have dire economic consequences for the US. 

Guthrie: "Speaker Gingrich, are you calling Mitt Romney a liar?" 

Gingrich: "Yes"

- Newt Gingrich response to question posed by reporter, Savannah Guthrie

A plurality of economists left and right believe that Romney's proposed policies will batter the US economy - and likely trigger a worldwide recession or worse. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said the election of Mitt Romney as president in November would “significantly” raise the odds of a recession because it would herald a shift to a much tighter budget. Even Romney himself knows his campaign promises will cause a US recession.

If Romney follows through on this campaign promises, he will make the Obama years look like economic nirvana.


So what is the bottom line?


My personal view is that even considering voting for Romney, with his radical public positions, is not worth the risk. I plan to vote for Obama. There simply is too much risk that either:

• Romney really does believe we should slash the size of government, even in a recovering economy, or
• Romney does not believe it, but his hand will be forced by the Tea Party

Ponder the following scenario: 


Romney wins the presidency, and his momentum and coattails drag enough Republican winners for the GOP to keep control of the House, and to unseat enough Democrats to take the Senate - a not unlikely occurrence should Romney gather the head of steam needed to unseat Obama. The newly confident Tea Party-led house passes the Ryan budget, the newly sworn GOP Senate passes it as well, and now Romney must stand all alone and veto it, as signing it will clearly cause a recession. 


Further, based on the constant flip-flopping Romney does, holding at least 2 positions on almost all policy issues, ask yourself this question:

Does Romney have the moral conviction, the strength of character to stand alone, against the most virulent partisan Tea Party types the GOP has ever seen and veto right-wing policies that will almost certainly throw the US into recession?

I think not. He will sign it.


It's one of the main problems with an argument for Romney. As we have detailed above, he as a proven liar, a flip-flopper, and perhaps worst of all, is clearly someone with demonstrably squishy core beliefs. 


When push comes to shove, as President he will not have the moral courage, or core convictions to stand the tremendous heat he will be facing from the far right of his own party. He'll sign it - if only to get his parties support in a re-election bid.


I feel it's too risky for someone with such public "squish"iness on matters of core beliefs to even consider Romney. The case is closed for me, and I hope many others will follow these same conclusions.


A Romney presidency at this time in our history of such fervent and reckless GOP orthodoxy - the orthodoxy of the Tea Party - will be disastrous and is not worth the risk of a Romney vote in my view.


Here's a very smart duo of commentators discussing this issue.

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Is the Conservative Psyche powerless against myths?

"Ronald Reagan would have...a hard time in today's Republican Party, [which insists on a path that] doesn't allow for finding some common ground. And it's Obama's fault."               

Jeb Bush, Republican Governor Florida 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

If the quote above, from George W Bush' brother Jeb, doesn't strike you as a bizarre leap in logic, you might be a Republican. 


Clearly Jeb would like us to believe that because of some unnamed action that Obama took, the GOP had no choice but to lurch so far to the right ideologically that they could brook no compromise with anyone to their left - even on policy positions where President Obama and former-President Ronald Reagan (the GOP Man-God) are in complete agreement. Don't believe me? Watch this...

But back to Jeb Bush. First, Jeb's assertion is historically inaccurate. The Tea Party, the group most responsible for the GOP's rightward lurch, formed largely in reaction to the financial betrayal of the Bush Administration to core conservative principles, by spending the US into deficit oblivion, But that spending splurge, including the trillion dollar TARP,  also known as the Wall Street bailout, was from George W. Bush, not Obama. The non-partisan Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that Congress uses, graphs it like this, with Republican administration spending in Red, and Democratic administration spending in Blue...

...so who inspired the rightward lurch of the GOP? Correct, the GOP itself did, with their wild spending on unfunded wars, unfunded social legislation (Bush II's prescription drug benefit for seniors), and endlessly supporting tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations; also known as "those most able to pay for GOP spending". Worse, their tax cut fever dangerously reduces the Federal governments ability to balance budgets when the GOP is in the White House. By the way, the chart above disproves another oft-repeated myth of the GOP, that Democrats are the ones who "tax and spend" and cause deficits. Clearly untrue.


As I've said before, GOP economic orthodoxy is illogical and dangerous.


The Tea Party has come to represent the pressure group that is pushing moderate Republican lawmakers out of government by rallying around (and successfully getting elected), Tea Party-friendly GOP challengers. Several high profile moderate Republicans have lost their long-held seats in House and the Senate to virulent, no-compromise Tea Party faithful legislators. 


So, Jeb, it is not "Obama's fault", it is the Tea Party, with their virulent threats against moderate, compromising lawmakers, who is really to blame for the rightward lurch of the GOP - obviously.

So why would Jeb Bush argue that GOP intransigence and uncompromising behavior is Obama's fault? Is he lying? Well, maybe, but I have begun to think that GOP legislators, when they say things that are "check-able" and easily found to be factually inaccurate, are not lying. They actually believe in something for which there is no evidence. Sound familiar? Right, that is the definition of religious faith, which is a prerequisite of all GOP legislators. Is their psychological worldview, with their virulent faith in religion, for which no evidence exists, a precondition that allows the GOP mind to believe whatever they wish - despite all evidence? Perhaps, and that possibility explains a lot doesn't it?

So are Conservative Psyches powerless against their own myths? It sure seems that way. It's either a) they are lying, or b) they truly believe things for which no supporting evidence exists.

Here's another, even clearer example. Watch this clip setting the stage for a GOP myth believer to rear his illogical head...

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Now let's watch the panel discussion, and notice the argument the Republican on the panel insists is true, in particular that the Federal Reserve ("the Fed") caused the great recession of 2007-2008 by lowering interest rates too low.

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So let's recap his argument. The Fed is to blame for the great recession of 2009 because they lowered prime interest rates that banks are charged for borrowing money, (that banks in turn loan to you and I). Think about the lack of logic in that argument. It's a dazzlingly bizarre conclusion to draw.


He is saying that the great recession of 2009 wasn't Wall Street's fault, for aggregating thousands of loans, many made to people who could never afford to repay the mortgage and were 100% assured of foreclosure. Instead he's passionately arguing that the great recession of 2009 was the fault of the Federal Reserve (and by association Ben Bernanke) for making money so cheap for Wall Street to borrow.


Of course, that argument is preposterous.


It's like blaming a store robbery on the store, for making it too tempting for the bandit to come in and take the money. He's clearly arguing that Wall Street was just tempted by the cheap money, and therefore had no choice but to offer mortgages to people who could not afford to pay them back. 


Um...what? 


But look at how violently he believes he's right. I wonder if he makes this argument hoping people will blame the Fed, rather than blame the obvious culprit of the financial collapse of 2009 - Wall Street.


Perhaps he knows that the topic is arcane and complex, and most people won't be able to understand what he's saying anyway - so they can't challenge the obvious ridiculousness of his position? I'm not sure but clearly what he believes passionately is so illogical it obviously can't be true. 


Does he really think it's true and just misses how illogical his position is on the cause of the recession? 


Or, does he believe it because believing it is the Fed's fault 

1. puts pressure on the Fed not to help the economy any further right now, 
2. which therefore creates a stalled economy, 
3. which therefore harms Obama, and makes Mitt Romney more likely to win the Presidency? 

The 3 steps above seems much more likely why he believes what he believes. He knows it's false but hopes to convince voters it's true so his side (the GOP) wins the election. He's lying to make people blame Obama and therefore vote for Romney. But I'm just not sure.


Again, either conservatives are lying when they say things like this, that are obviously false, or they really believe things they want to believe, even when the evidence is clearly not supporting their conclusion.


Either way, this is terrible news for our country. How can we possibly have a civil discourse when one side believes things that are clearly false?


My solution? Vote for Democrats. What else can we do to restore our country to centrist sanity?

Lincoln feared current GOP orthodoxy

Click image to enlarge

Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President (1861–1865), was clearly a centrist. By the standards of today's GOP, he would be labeled by many in the GOP, especially Tea Partiers, as a "socialist". 


By the way, so would the GOP's more recent man-god Ronald Reagan. Both Lincoln, and Reagan, by the GOP's own definition, were SOCIALISTS.


Of course that is preposterous. But so is calling President Obama this name, meant as a slur.


Neither man is a socialist in a pejorative sense. Actually, we are all socialists. If you believe in things in our society that are funded by the government, then you are a socialist.


Don't agree with that? Allow me to prove it.

• Believe in the Post Office? You're a socialist
• Believe in Medicare? You're a socialist
• Believe in Social Security? You're a socialist
• Believe in Food Stamps? You're a socialist
• Believe in sidewalks, or public parks, or Arlington Memorial Cemetery, or any public cemetery, and on, and on, and on. If so, you're a socialist
• If you believe in ANYTHING listed above or anything publicly funded...YOU. ARE. A. SOCIALIST.

But more to the point (and Lincoln's quote above) we ALL, left and right, should fear an oligarchy or plutocracy. Wikipedia defines it as follows:

Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos), meaning "a few", and ἄρχω (archo), meaning "to rule or to command")^[1][2][3] is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, or military control. Such states are often controlled by a few prominent families who pass their influence from one generation to the next.

Throughout history, some oligarchies have been tyrannical, relying on public servitude to exist, although others have been relatively benign. Aristotle pioneered the use of the term as a synonym for rule by the rich,^[4] for which the exact term is plutocracy, but oligarchy is not always a rule by wealth, as oligarchs can simply be a privileged group, and do not have to be connected by bloodlines as in amonarchy.

I've underlined the part above that should scare you to death, given our current direction, and the persistent push by the GOP to more and more favor the wealthy and corporations.


We are a Republic, where "one man, one vote", and "of the people, by the people, for the people" is enshrined in our core document. We are, most important, a representative democracy, where each of us votes representation and thereby controls the destiny of our nation. If that representation is overly represented by a single group, especially a small group with enormous and inordinate power, each of us become slaves to our nation, rather than free citizens. We simply must resist the money that is currently in politics. We must insist on legislation that overturns the horrendous Citizens United decision which allows wealthy individuals and corporations to spend unlimited, anonymous dollars and thereby control our elections and worse, control our elected officials. 


Already we see this in the 2012 Presidential campaign. Billionaires are picking candidates like race horses and running them out there. If that doesn't remind you of Greek and Roman history, with peasants running into coliseums to be fed to lions, then you're not paying attention.


Money in politics will always exist, but if we are not careful, we will lose control of our democracy. If you're not fighting mad at Citizens United, not disgusted by the pandering on both side, but especially on the right, to the wealthy, and to corporations, YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM. And I, am against you.

Stand up.

The fiction that is trickle down economics

Funny way to say it, but it's true. Depending on which attempt at cutting taxes on the rich you mean, we've been waiting far too long to finally dispense with the notion that doing so creates jobs. Clearly, CLEARLY

IT. DOES. NOT.

Time to switch gears and drive middle-class income, security and encourage their spending. That demand from the large middle class is the ONLY way to create growth in employment.

POST UPDATE:

Here's a great little video from Economist Robert Reich on the fiction of Trickle Down economics in 3 minutes.

Innovation

Innovation drives the economy, as amazing new products and services create value that improves or enhances our lives, and people with at least some disposable income (hopefully not debt) buy those products and services. A large portion of the country - the middle-class in particular, as they are the largest group - must have disposable income or innovations fail to be bought and entrepreneurs of innovation are unsuccessful. That's why income inequality matters, it hurts the middle-class' ability to spend. And current GOP orthodoxy that gives tax credits to the already rich, and already cash-rich corporations, and forces higher costs (and thereby lowers disposable income) on the middle-class matters enormously as well.

Innovation literally drives the economy. My spending pays part of your salary when I buy your innovations or those of your employer, and your spending pays part of my salary when you buy my innovations or those of my employer. In this virtuous feedback loop, we each, by our innovation and consumption, contribute to positive upward momentum in our economy.

One of the big problems with our current economy is that too many get insanely rich creating nothing of any real value and innovating things (like credit default swaps) that benefit few, and worse harm everyone else. For example, Wall Street "innovations" (let's call them "sinnovations", shall we?).

One such clever ruse was a scheme to:

1. Place huge bets on giant bundles of thousands of (usually questionable) mortgages aggregated together (Lehman Brothers and all of the big Wall Street firms in 2007, and some still today) 
2. Then hedging (literally trying to win big and also betting you'll lose and win some anyway, meaning you can't really lose) with even more questionable insurance plans (AIG)
3. And then counting on the fact that, if you fail and your insurer hedge fails because you overwhelm them (as happened to AIG), your company being too big for the federal government to allow failure, means you get bailed out by taxpayers - you and I.

ZERO risk, huge reward, and nothing. absolutely nothing gets created, except riches beyond your imagination for a small number of clever people who get their rewards from tax payers. Experts left and right of the political spectrum agreed, we had allowed these financial firms to become so large, to hold so much of our nations' wealth on their books, that we had no choice but to bail them out or risk losing the entire economy for a generation. But we are literally enriching those who game the system, innovate not at all, and the cycle of decline of everyone else (you, and me, and the entire middle-class - the so-called 99%) continues.

Even when these risky Wall Street deals succeed, nothing of any real value gets created - and that's a problem.

Rewards of this sort, where nothing gets created must end, and the disincentive of being too big to fail - allowing, even encouraging massive risk taking where failure means taxpayer loss - must also end.

Perhaps the most interesting consequence of income inequality, that the GOP routinely ignores, is that when you lower the buying power of the middle-class, which GOP policies continually succeed in doing, you greatly increase the risk to entrepreneurs who innovate. If the middle-class has limited buying power, entrepreneurs have a limited market for their innovations. That's bad for entrepreneurs, bad for investors, and very bad for the economy. Economies are ecosystems, and just like natural ecosystems, shocking seemingly unimportant parts of the ecosystem can decimate the entire system. The shock causes it to collapse from one of it's key pillars, in this case middle-class disposable income, being harmed - and the entire ecosystem comes crashing down. Protecting the middle-class and keeping their earning power, and spending power in line with inflation is not only good social policy, it's good economic policy.

We have not kept middle class earning power in line. If we had, the average middle-class person would earn almost $45k/year more. Imagine how different the market for entrepreneurs' products would be then!

So innovation is amazingly important, and so are protecting the buying power of consumers of that innovation.

For more inspiration on innovation: Here is an amazing NY Times site on coming innovations that will change our lives in the next few years.

And here's an innovative CEO who is about to reap his reward. Watch him give thanks.






And here's a very cool video of some very talented musicians innovating a great song, on a single guitar, played by 5 people.

Innovation is everywhere. Can you afford to buy it?