John McCain announced he'd suspend his campaign, asked Obama to do the same, and called for postponing Friday's debate.
If a man is unable to address the business of the day and carry on his obligations, then how is he going to handle the job of president?
This financial "crisis" (and I have an economics background, so I readily get how severe this could get) didn't suddenly spring up---it's been building from years of ignoring the problem for political expediency (yes, from both major parties). If it only now needs someone's attention, that person is clueless about the U.S. economy.
We've known for a century that an industrial economy cannot place blind faith in Adam Smith's agricultural model. The unregulated 19th century led to exactly the monopolies T. Roosevelt started to address. C. Coolidge proclaimed "the business of America is business," and when his successor ignored the written plea of a thousand economists, the market crashed in 1929---taking "non-market" people with it. Eventually, FDR introduced regulations to pull us out and better manage the economy.
From there it's been a free ride. Economic booms were wasted. Then suddenly Reagan told us everything was simple again, and that morning in America, Adam Smith rose from the dead, unable to address the realities of an industrial economy. So the largest creditor nation became the largest debtor nation in just eight years, and the market crashed again in 1987----along with a Savings & Loan scandal resolved at the expense of the taxpayers.
Then came the largest peacetime expansion in the history of the U.S., and deficits turned to surpluses. But we were too worried about Clinton getting a blowjob to pay attention.
So more deregulation, under the fantasy that all deregulation (and any tax cut) is good. The Treasury will magically create the money. Osama bin Laden attacked the U.S. while the Bush Administration was asleep at the wheel. Then they used that tragedy to slam through the neo-com agenda of more deregulation, stripping away Constitutional rights, and starting a war by lying about its connection to 9/11. Bush made Osama a success by insuring the attacks would indeed undermine U.S. financial interests. We're spending a fortune, we've sacrificed our rights, and Osama is untouched.
So our deficits are soaring, with no end in sight. We're still pretending we don't need to address Medicare and Social Security, even though doing so now will prevent the next crisis. We spend more on health care than any other nation, but we don't have health care for 25% of our citizens---so we pay instead in the emergency rooms.
And now, after almost eight years of Bush, we face another financial crisis, again in banking, and while people lose their homes, even more money is stolen from taxpayers while we're told we must keep taxes low on the wealthy.
Yet Warren Buffet is a Democrat. Go figure.
People need to stop voting against their own interests.
And McCain needs to be a man and have a debate he knows he can't win---and can't win for good reason.
Writer
Showing posts with label Reagan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reagan. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
John Quixote and the McCainocrats
Poor reasoning is hardly unusual in political arguments, but among the poorest is the ire expressed by some of Hillary Clinton’s disappointed supporters.
The argument, such as it is, runs that since the media treated Senator Clinton poorly, her supporters will vote for McCain instead of Obama.
No, seriously—they say this with straight faces and pious intensity.
Apparently this must be made explicit—Obama is not a media mogul. He does not control it, and to blame him (or attempt to punish him) for the media’s actions is ridiculous. Also bizarre about this claim is that these Sen. Clinton supporters apparently feel she’s a helpless girl at the mercy of the big bad powers that be—and that somehow these powers are the media. Come on, Sen. Clinton is a strong and politically astute politician—hardly a victim. And reporters’ lackluster performance as the Bush administration has run roughshod over the Constitution and blatantly lied to the U.S. people is not exactly an indication of the media’s power—dupes would be closer to truth. Or perhaps spineless.
Meanwhile Obama has assiduously avoided presenting himself as the “black candidate,” running instead on his appeal and ideas. Imagine that.
The simple truth is that Clinton lost the primary because she came up against a superior candidate, one the voters preferred. (Yes, she’s claimed she won the “popular vote,” but no one has been able to see how she came up with that conclusion, as Obama won more votes and more delegates.)
But she has more experience? Not much. She’s a second term senator, but presents herself having decades of national politics experience—when she spent most of it in private practice. (And if First Lady counts, then does anyone find Laura Bush a prime presidential candidate?)
Let’s be honest---if these voters wanted the most experienced candidate, they’d have voted for Bill Richardson—long experience, popular, and Hispanic, so still historic (if that’s the point for these voters).
These voters are at least well matched with their preferred candidate—her performance refusing to admit obvious defeat in the primary and her ungracious speech “backing” Obama was shameful.
In short, this comes down to “sore loser.” OK, human---but at what cost? I’d have considered McCain at one point, eight years ago, and I don’t doubt that he’s a good man, but his record and views during the Bush administration have evolved to present a poor candidate.
Military operations seemed to have tipped the balance. McCain maintains that we could have won Vietnam if we’d only have stayed. Perhaps true, but what he misses is at what cost in both funding and lives, without considering everything we’d have to sacrifice just for the sake of winning. This same blind egoism drives his take on Iraq--above all else, he wants to win, no matter the cost, ignoring several other serious problems.
This irrational machoism pops up again in his insistence that we should never talk to countries with which we have conflicts, specifically Iran, which McCain ridicules as “making nice to our enemies.” But since when did talks equal “making nice”? If you get a “talking-to,” for example, it’s not a pleasant experience. We talked to the Soviet Union all during the Cold War--and more than once prevented nuclear war by doing so. And talking doesn’t mean we agree or concede. It means we attempt to find acceptable middle ground, or perhaps even persuade the Iranians to follow a preferable course.
The distortions aren’t limited to foreign policy. McCain has attacked Obama’s plan to help poorer families with a tax bracket occurring at $200,000, claiming this will hurt small businesses and cost jobs. McCain, however, ignores that those small business costs are already legitimate business liabilities, and so are deducted before counting as earned income--the $200,000 would be net income earned AFTER those employment expenses are already paid.
McCain also repeats the tax cut mantra--we must cut taxes to stimulate the economy. This, of course, ignores that the previous tax cuts haven’t accomplish that; to the contrary, they’ve contributed to a soaring national debt that has devalued the dollar and helped tighten credit markets. Further, just as in the Reagan years, when the U.S. went from being the largest creditor nation to being the largest debtor nation, with 25% of our assets moving into foreign hands, our current spending habit is being financed primarily by China. Hardly contributes to the independence from foreign interests. Plus, all during the economic boom of the 1990s, the mantra was that we have to cut taxes to give the money back to the American taxpayers. So which is it? Cut taxes in good times. Cut taxes in bad times. Anybody suspect they don’t particularly care about the economy (or just about the economic welfare of their wealthy campaign contributors)? McCain has admitted it’s not his strong suit. He’s right on that point, at least. But certainly not a “maverick.”
Then there’s McCain’s famed claim of reaching across the aisle. It’s true! Trouble is, he hasn’t accomplished anything meaningful. When George McGovern and Bob Dole reached across the isle, they created the school lunch program, ensuring that every school child in America got at least one nutritious hot meal a day. McCain reached out for immigration reform that doesn’t work.
His bipartisan attempts at campaign finance reform have been equally unrealistic. Reality is, stakes are high in national politics, and since people (and groups) have the right to support candidates of their choice, all new regulations will ever accomplish is moving the money from one avenue to another. Further, his position is disingenuous. Barack Obama offered to rely on public financing if McCain would do--and McCain is the one who refused (and foolishly at that, since the Obama campaign has much, much more cash). Is it time for the silly flip-flop chant?
And speaking of flip-flops, how about McCain’s flat claim that we should not bail out banks or consumers who make poor economic decisions. Two days later, after a popular Obama speech about not bailouts but sensible refinancing, McCain suddenly argued that we had to help people in trouble.
But perhaps at the top of my befuddlement is why any strong supporter of women’s rights would vote for a candidate who has repeatedly made clear that he would appoint Supreme Court Justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade. Let alone the point that packing the court to force it do one’s will instead of pursuing justice undermines the system.
Speaking of the Supreme Court, McCain made the ridiculous claim that a President Obama would mean more Justices like the ones who ruled out the death penalty for the rape of a child--and this was AFTER Obama said he strongly disagreed with the decision (a decision reached, incidentally, by an already Conservative court).
The Straight-Talk Express has pulled into Bullshit Central, and it’s dropping load after load after load. McCain likes to label Obama as “elitist.” If by “elite” he means “smart,” I say we go with it.
Writer
The argument, such as it is, runs that since the media treated Senator Clinton poorly, her supporters will vote for McCain instead of Obama.
No, seriously—they say this with straight faces and pious intensity.
Apparently this must be made explicit—Obama is not a media mogul. He does not control it, and to blame him (or attempt to punish him) for the media’s actions is ridiculous. Also bizarre about this claim is that these Sen. Clinton supporters apparently feel she’s a helpless girl at the mercy of the big bad powers that be—and that somehow these powers are the media. Come on, Sen. Clinton is a strong and politically astute politician—hardly a victim. And reporters’ lackluster performance as the Bush administration has run roughshod over the Constitution and blatantly lied to the U.S. people is not exactly an indication of the media’s power—dupes would be closer to truth. Or perhaps spineless.
Meanwhile Obama has assiduously avoided presenting himself as the “black candidate,” running instead on his appeal and ideas. Imagine that.
The simple truth is that Clinton lost the primary because she came up against a superior candidate, one the voters preferred. (Yes, she’s claimed she won the “popular vote,” but no one has been able to see how she came up with that conclusion, as Obama won more votes and more delegates.)
But she has more experience? Not much. She’s a second term senator, but presents herself having decades of national politics experience—when she spent most of it in private practice. (And if First Lady counts, then does anyone find Laura Bush a prime presidential candidate?)
Let’s be honest---if these voters wanted the most experienced candidate, they’d have voted for Bill Richardson—long experience, popular, and Hispanic, so still historic (if that’s the point for these voters).
These voters are at least well matched with their preferred candidate—her performance refusing to admit obvious defeat in the primary and her ungracious speech “backing” Obama was shameful.
In short, this comes down to “sore loser.” OK, human---but at what cost? I’d have considered McCain at one point, eight years ago, and I don’t doubt that he’s a good man, but his record and views during the Bush administration have evolved to present a poor candidate.
Military operations seemed to have tipped the balance. McCain maintains that we could have won Vietnam if we’d only have stayed. Perhaps true, but what he misses is at what cost in both funding and lives, without considering everything we’d have to sacrifice just for the sake of winning. This same blind egoism drives his take on Iraq--above all else, he wants to win, no matter the cost, ignoring several other serious problems.
This irrational machoism pops up again in his insistence that we should never talk to countries with which we have conflicts, specifically Iran, which McCain ridicules as “making nice to our enemies.” But since when did talks equal “making nice”? If you get a “talking-to,” for example, it’s not a pleasant experience. We talked to the Soviet Union all during the Cold War--and more than once prevented nuclear war by doing so. And talking doesn’t mean we agree or concede. It means we attempt to find acceptable middle ground, or perhaps even persuade the Iranians to follow a preferable course.
The distortions aren’t limited to foreign policy. McCain has attacked Obama’s plan to help poorer families with a tax bracket occurring at $200,000, claiming this will hurt small businesses and cost jobs. McCain, however, ignores that those small business costs are already legitimate business liabilities, and so are deducted before counting as earned income--the $200,000 would be net income earned AFTER those employment expenses are already paid.
McCain also repeats the tax cut mantra--we must cut taxes to stimulate the economy. This, of course, ignores that the previous tax cuts haven’t accomplish that; to the contrary, they’ve contributed to a soaring national debt that has devalued the dollar and helped tighten credit markets. Further, just as in the Reagan years, when the U.S. went from being the largest creditor nation to being the largest debtor nation, with 25% of our assets moving into foreign hands, our current spending habit is being financed primarily by China. Hardly contributes to the independence from foreign interests. Plus, all during the economic boom of the 1990s, the mantra was that we have to cut taxes to give the money back to the American taxpayers. So which is it? Cut taxes in good times. Cut taxes in bad times. Anybody suspect they don’t particularly care about the economy (or just about the economic welfare of their wealthy campaign contributors)? McCain has admitted it’s not his strong suit. He’s right on that point, at least. But certainly not a “maverick.”
Then there’s McCain’s famed claim of reaching across the aisle. It’s true! Trouble is, he hasn’t accomplished anything meaningful. When George McGovern and Bob Dole reached across the isle, they created the school lunch program, ensuring that every school child in America got at least one nutritious hot meal a day. McCain reached out for immigration reform that doesn’t work.
His bipartisan attempts at campaign finance reform have been equally unrealistic. Reality is, stakes are high in national politics, and since people (and groups) have the right to support candidates of their choice, all new regulations will ever accomplish is moving the money from one avenue to another. Further, his position is disingenuous. Barack Obama offered to rely on public financing if McCain would do--and McCain is the one who refused (and foolishly at that, since the Obama campaign has much, much more cash). Is it time for the silly flip-flop chant?
And speaking of flip-flops, how about McCain’s flat claim that we should not bail out banks or consumers who make poor economic decisions. Two days later, after a popular Obama speech about not bailouts but sensible refinancing, McCain suddenly argued that we had to help people in trouble.
But perhaps at the top of my befuddlement is why any strong supporter of women’s rights would vote for a candidate who has repeatedly made clear that he would appoint Supreme Court Justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade. Let alone the point that packing the court to force it do one’s will instead of pursuing justice undermines the system.
Speaking of the Supreme Court, McCain made the ridiculous claim that a President Obama would mean more Justices like the ones who ruled out the death penalty for the rape of a child--and this was AFTER Obama said he strongly disagreed with the decision (a decision reached, incidentally, by an already Conservative court).
The Straight-Talk Express has pulled into Bullshit Central, and it’s dropping load after load after load. McCain likes to label Obama as “elitist.” If by “elite” he means “smart,” I say we go with it.
Writer
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Wiki World
A “wiki” is a collaborative website—it allows users to add and edit content.
In many ways, this is a wonderful development, one yet to be understood. Researchers have explored and are exploring how “group think” can yield better results than individuals. The idea is old—Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” of the market place, for example, presented similar claims. However, Smith’s model demanded perfect knowledge for all players, an ideal not likely realized. “Group think,” however, starts with the notion that even “primitive” creatures, like ants and bees, possess the ability to make collective decisions far beyond the ability of any individual insect, and that yes, humans also can exhibit this potential. Management theory, organizational behavior studies and more all offer similar accounts of the phenomenon.
“Wiki” is also Hawaiian for “quick,” though, and I fear that’s the main attraction.
I visit a couple of discussion boards regularly. One of them, a Gorean board, frequently gets versions of the same question over and over—What is Gor? (or various attacks on Gor). The board has a search function, as members repeatedly note, but this is too much trouble for many users. Some do try, and then complain that they couldn’t immediately get the answers they sought. Not wiki enough.
A few even claim to be well versed while admitting they’ve never read a Gor novel—kinda like the student who reads e-notes instead of the novel and then bitches the teacher doesn’t appreciate student “work.” Even better—the student who raises a hand in class and says, “Well, I didn’t read it, but I think the character meant that…”
On a blogging board, one member asked how fellow bloggers conduct research. The answers were sad—most said they don’t research at all, and those who did, relied on other bloggers (who, apparently, didn’t research either). Easy, but isn’t that just gossip? Several of those bloggers want to be serious writers—yet have missed that publication after publication stresses that they seek “well-researched” pieces. Not wiki.
I asked a class experimenting with blogs which ones presented the best writing. “The short ones!” insisted a few students. So Harry Potter would be better if just a few paragraphs?
They don’t even “wiki” well—I have to show them how to use Google to narrow searches, how to search for blogs, how to find out how to add advertising to their blogs, even though these links all appear on Google’s home page, the first place they go for information.
Another class, struggling with interpreting an assigned article in group sessions, clearly dragged its collective feet, finally admitting, “We’re just waiting for you to step in and make it all right.” Apparently, I have all the answers?
But that is what many people want. Problems abroad? Bomb ‘em. Economic woes? Just cut taxes (why don’t we eliminate them—then the government can magically fund itself with no money!). Hey, why even have government? Surely we don’t need those annoying police, firemen, road crews…
And on it goes, while people vote for politicians whose positions contradict their own, just because someone fed them the right line, pushed the right button, making it all easy. Reagan’s “shining city on a hill.”
Wiki World.
Writer
In many ways, this is a wonderful development, one yet to be understood. Researchers have explored and are exploring how “group think” can yield better results than individuals. The idea is old—Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” of the market place, for example, presented similar claims. However, Smith’s model demanded perfect knowledge for all players, an ideal not likely realized. “Group think,” however, starts with the notion that even “primitive” creatures, like ants and bees, possess the ability to make collective decisions far beyond the ability of any individual insect, and that yes, humans also can exhibit this potential. Management theory, organizational behavior studies and more all offer similar accounts of the phenomenon.
“Wiki” is also Hawaiian for “quick,” though, and I fear that’s the main attraction.
I visit a couple of discussion boards regularly. One of them, a Gorean board, frequently gets versions of the same question over and over—What is Gor? (or various attacks on Gor). The board has a search function, as members repeatedly note, but this is too much trouble for many users. Some do try, and then complain that they couldn’t immediately get the answers they sought. Not wiki enough.
A few even claim to be well versed while admitting they’ve never read a Gor novel—kinda like the student who reads e-notes instead of the novel and then bitches the teacher doesn’t appreciate student “work.” Even better—the student who raises a hand in class and says, “Well, I didn’t read it, but I think the character meant that…”
On a blogging board, one member asked how fellow bloggers conduct research. The answers were sad—most said they don’t research at all, and those who did, relied on other bloggers (who, apparently, didn’t research either). Easy, but isn’t that just gossip? Several of those bloggers want to be serious writers—yet have missed that publication after publication stresses that they seek “well-researched” pieces. Not wiki.
I asked a class experimenting with blogs which ones presented the best writing. “The short ones!” insisted a few students. So Harry Potter would be better if just a few paragraphs?
They don’t even “wiki” well—I have to show them how to use Google to narrow searches, how to search for blogs, how to find out how to add advertising to their blogs, even though these links all appear on Google’s home page, the first place they go for information.
Another class, struggling with interpreting an assigned article in group sessions, clearly dragged its collective feet, finally admitting, “We’re just waiting for you to step in and make it all right.” Apparently, I have all the answers?
But that is what many people want. Problems abroad? Bomb ‘em. Economic woes? Just cut taxes (why don’t we eliminate them—then the government can magically fund itself with no money!). Hey, why even have government? Surely we don’t need those annoying police, firemen, road crews…
And on it goes, while people vote for politicians whose positions contradict their own, just because someone fed them the right line, pushed the right button, making it all easy. Reagan’s “shining city on a hill.”
Wiki World.
Writer
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Sunday Ain't No Park with George
On my way back from Sunday morning laundry, I pulled into one of the small self-service vegetable stands local farmers set by the road. I could use some tomatoes, and 3/$100 certainly beats the grocery store price.
I counted out two dollars worth of dimes--good opportunity to begin to clear up my change tray--when a woman, 65+ I’d guess, swung her SUV in behind me. As I got out of my car and started depositing my dimes, she, apparently having read my bumper sticker, opened her door, and without any greeting at all, countered, “Enough is enough, vote Republican!”
My bumper sticker, “Enough is Enough! Vote Democrat!” is the first I’ve ever sported on any car. The Democrat National Committee sent it to me along with a few other materials in their ever persistent quest for additional donations. I wish they’d intersperse news about party efforts and progress--I’d probably donate more frequently.
Nonetheless, I share the sentiment so strongly that I posted it prominently. I was fiercely independent until Ronald Reagan tried to shut down science, quadrupled the national debt, and convinced Americans that we just had to keep telling ourselves everything is fine. Just like magic. Then he added illegally defying Congress in the Iran/Contra scandal. Let’s not even get into his arming Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. Something had to be done, so I turned to the Democrats.
George H. Bush, a warmonger who in 1979-1980 campaigned against Reagan’s “trickle down” economics fantasy as “voodoo economics,” turned and embraced it to win election in 1988, running unemployment up to double digits--and getting his chance to go to war.
Bill Clinton defeated Bush on an economic platform, and despite facing a hostile Republican Congress for most of his term, passed a number of measures and presided over the largest peacetime expansion in the nation’s history--and returned to budget surpluses along the way. He even managed to contain Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. George W. Bush returned us to war and record deficits, committing us to years of expensive occupation all while refusing to pay for it, cutting taxes especially for those best able to afford them, ignoring the complete lack of positive economic impact--except for the wealthy. He’s even strained the military, including the National Guard, so far that all commanders warn we can’t sustain these deployments past the spring. And to top it off, military benefits, including needed health care and proper combat vehicles, have been missing, underfunded. Then there’s systematically destroying then very rights that make the U.S. Constitution our guiding principles. Enough is enough. Vote Democrat.
I really wasn’t up for an argument with this lady. “Well, we’re engaged in economic policies and a war we can’t sustain,” I offer, choosing a nonpartisan point.
“We HAVE to do that!” she insists, stridently, ignoring the logical disconnect. I let it go--the discussion promises to be pointless anyway. She doesn’t. “Bill and Hillary only got that surplus by cooking the numbers--it didn’t really exist!”
“They slashed funding for the military!” she adds, voice rising.
[Incidentally, why do so many Republicans assume all debate is about Senator Clinton? Haven’t they noticed the lively primary debate, featuring a range of strong candidates all with enthusiastic supporters?]
She doesn’t offer any specifics. I assume she’s referring to the long-standing practice of all administrations of lumping the current Social Security surplus into the overall budget--a practice candidate Al Gore promised to end, by the way, in his 2000 bid for the presidency. The practice also means all those deficits are that much worse, a point which seems to have escaped her. Probably just repeating what she’s heard on Rush Limbaugh.
I sigh inwardly. Issues like this need discussion, though, so I start to explain. Immediately she interrupts, her voice nicer, “Well, you have your ideas and I have mine.” The conversation is over.
So thousands of people will continue to die, thousands more badly wounded, because a retired lady in rural New York doesn’t need information to make up her mind. Medicare, headed rapidly for a financial meltdown, will wait until it’s a crisis. The looming Social Security shortfall, completely solvable if we act soon, will similarly wait for doomsday. If she has anything to say about it, America will remain the only industrial nation without national health care, spending billions on emergency room care instead, at far greater cost. Promising stem cell research--and possible cures for a wide range of diseases--will have to wait for scientists from other, more reasonable nations. Tax cuts will remain the magic cure for all ills, continuing the myth that “giving the money back so they can invest as they see fit” will resolve entitlement difficulties, ignoring Americans negative savings rate.
And peacetime prosperity will remain an accounting trick, all while America spends its former greatness and prosperity into the shadows where all myopic empires have been humbled. Instead, this will be the age of China, India, and the European Union.
Writer
I counted out two dollars worth of dimes--good opportunity to begin to clear up my change tray--when a woman, 65+ I’d guess, swung her SUV in behind me. As I got out of my car and started depositing my dimes, she, apparently having read my bumper sticker, opened her door, and without any greeting at all, countered, “Enough is enough, vote Republican!”
My bumper sticker, “Enough is Enough! Vote Democrat!” is the first I’ve ever sported on any car. The Democrat National Committee sent it to me along with a few other materials in their ever persistent quest for additional donations. I wish they’d intersperse news about party efforts and progress--I’d probably donate more frequently.
Nonetheless, I share the sentiment so strongly that I posted it prominently. I was fiercely independent until Ronald Reagan tried to shut down science, quadrupled the national debt, and convinced Americans that we just had to keep telling ourselves everything is fine. Just like magic. Then he added illegally defying Congress in the Iran/Contra scandal. Let’s not even get into his arming Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. Something had to be done, so I turned to the Democrats.
George H. Bush, a warmonger who in 1979-1980 campaigned against Reagan’s “trickle down” economics fantasy as “voodoo economics,” turned and embraced it to win election in 1988, running unemployment up to double digits--and getting his chance to go to war.
Bill Clinton defeated Bush on an economic platform, and despite facing a hostile Republican Congress for most of his term, passed a number of measures and presided over the largest peacetime expansion in the nation’s history--and returned to budget surpluses along the way. He even managed to contain Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. George W. Bush returned us to war and record deficits, committing us to years of expensive occupation all while refusing to pay for it, cutting taxes especially for those best able to afford them, ignoring the complete lack of positive economic impact--except for the wealthy. He’s even strained the military, including the National Guard, so far that all commanders warn we can’t sustain these deployments past the spring. And to top it off, military benefits, including needed health care and proper combat vehicles, have been missing, underfunded. Then there’s systematically destroying then very rights that make the U.S. Constitution our guiding principles. Enough is enough. Vote Democrat.
I really wasn’t up for an argument with this lady. “Well, we’re engaged in economic policies and a war we can’t sustain,” I offer, choosing a nonpartisan point.
“We HAVE to do that!” she insists, stridently, ignoring the logical disconnect. I let it go--the discussion promises to be pointless anyway. She doesn’t. “Bill and Hillary only got that surplus by cooking the numbers--it didn’t really exist!”
“They slashed funding for the military!” she adds, voice rising.
[Incidentally, why do so many Republicans assume all debate is about Senator Clinton? Haven’t they noticed the lively primary debate, featuring a range of strong candidates all with enthusiastic supporters?]
She doesn’t offer any specifics. I assume she’s referring to the long-standing practice of all administrations of lumping the current Social Security surplus into the overall budget--a practice candidate Al Gore promised to end, by the way, in his 2000 bid for the presidency. The practice also means all those deficits are that much worse, a point which seems to have escaped her. Probably just repeating what she’s heard on Rush Limbaugh.
I sigh inwardly. Issues like this need discussion, though, so I start to explain. Immediately she interrupts, her voice nicer, “Well, you have your ideas and I have mine.” The conversation is over.
So thousands of people will continue to die, thousands more badly wounded, because a retired lady in rural New York doesn’t need information to make up her mind. Medicare, headed rapidly for a financial meltdown, will wait until it’s a crisis. The looming Social Security shortfall, completely solvable if we act soon, will similarly wait for doomsday. If she has anything to say about it, America will remain the only industrial nation without national health care, spending billions on emergency room care instead, at far greater cost. Promising stem cell research--and possible cures for a wide range of diseases--will have to wait for scientists from other, more reasonable nations. Tax cuts will remain the magic cure for all ills, continuing the myth that “giving the money back so they can invest as they see fit” will resolve entitlement difficulties, ignoring Americans negative savings rate.
And peacetime prosperity will remain an accounting trick, all while America spends its former greatness and prosperity into the shadows where all myopic empires have been humbled. Instead, this will be the age of China, India, and the European Union.
Writer
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
An Answer to a Conservative Republican
Comment from a discussion board:
"As a conservative Republican I want our [next?] President to have a desire to make the United States a freedom-loving world-leading capitalistic democracy not a shackled world-following socialistic communist nation."
Then you shouldn't have elected a president who has trashed U.S. freedoms, corrupted the judicial system, slowed economic growth and ballooned the national debt--the latter extending the 25% of the country Reagan sold to foreign interests by ignoring reality and turning the largest creditor nation into the largest debtor nation in just one president's time in office. Today, under "we'll just borrow the money" Bush, that's been so radically expanded that China and Saudi Arabia, in particular, own so much of U.S. debt that we CAN'T choose to just go our own way--they literally own us. Further, President Cowboy's policies have virtually ensured that we're stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan for years to the tune of billions (not to mention straining the U.S. military to the point where even the commanders say we can't sustain it past the spring--face it--this "Conservative Republican" president has weakened our nation for years to come). U.S. citizens' negative savings rate doesn't help—EVERYBODY seemingly just charges what they can't afford--then are surprised when they lose their homes, all while driving new trucks with 12 mpg and 8 year car loans, as many of my neighbors do, owing more on the truck than it's worth.
I'm sorry to say it, because I fervently love this country, but America is falling--and we've no one to blame but ourselves.
Ideological denial will only worsen an already tenuous situation.
Writer
"As a conservative Republican I want our [next?] President to have a desire to make the United States a freedom-loving world-leading capitalistic democracy not a shackled world-following socialistic communist nation."
Then you shouldn't have elected a president who has trashed U.S. freedoms, corrupted the judicial system, slowed economic growth and ballooned the national debt--the latter extending the 25% of the country Reagan sold to foreign interests by ignoring reality and turning the largest creditor nation into the largest debtor nation in just one president's time in office. Today, under "we'll just borrow the money" Bush, that's been so radically expanded that China and Saudi Arabia, in particular, own so much of U.S. debt that we CAN'T choose to just go our own way--they literally own us. Further, President Cowboy's policies have virtually ensured that we're stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan for years to the tune of billions (not to mention straining the U.S. military to the point where even the commanders say we can't sustain it past the spring--face it--this "Conservative Republican" president has weakened our nation for years to come). U.S. citizens' negative savings rate doesn't help—EVERYBODY seemingly just charges what they can't afford--then are surprised when they lose their homes, all while driving new trucks with 12 mpg and 8 year car loans, as many of my neighbors do, owing more on the truck than it's worth.
I'm sorry to say it, because I fervently love this country, but America is falling--and we've no one to blame but ourselves.
Ideological denial will only worsen an already tenuous situation.
Writer
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Liberal? Conservative? Are You Sure? [A Rambling Economic Romp]
One of my students wrote a paper attacking the views of the liberal media, particularly George Will. No, that’s not a typo—that’s what she wrote, and what she meant. I wonder if staunch conservative Will realizes he’s converted. Truth is, the media has become quite conservative—look at FOX news, for example.
Other discussions in both the classroom and the corner store reveal a disturbing reality—people pick their favorite label, then their views. Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative—these seem to be just words divorced from popular policy, and those misunderstandings lead to poor national choices.
Consider the proud Republicans who argue we must protect American jobs from foreign competition. Are they aware this is the Democrats’ position? Republicans would argue for free trade. NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) especially seems to be a lightning rod, approved under President Clinton, despite the reality that the pact created ten times the number of jobs as it initially cost, the benefit continuing, the cost history, affected employees the beneficiaries of funding to cover the transition (and that funding exceeded the cost).
The WTO (World Trade Organization) also draws some fire, while other lesser known but important agreements, such as cooperation among the Pacific rim nations, seem to escape the radar. Any introductory macroeconomics text can lay out the well established case that such international trade benefits all parties (see comparative advantage). Why the opposition? More benefits are imported than exported.
At the same time, the same people oppose the United Nations, or any attempt at meaningful international law. So, while importing inexpensive food, clothing, toys, and so forth, we also abdicate the safety standards we trust in the U.S., putting ourselves at risk. Sound counterproductive?
How about fiscal responsibility? Instead of runaway spending and high taxes, we should pay as we go!
Not a Republican position—Reagan quadrupled the national debt, changing the largest creditor nation into the largest debtor nation. Clinton turned that around, generating the largest peacetime expansion in U.S. history, upsetting the conventional hawkish view that expanding economies need a war. Bush brought the U.S. back to both war and burgeoning deficits.
Interestingly, here Democrats and Conservatives agree! Pay for programs, wars as they come. Vice-President Cheney disagrees, claiming “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.” That’s like running up your credit card, pretending you’ll never have trouble making payments. It only works so long. As Howard Dean noted, “borrow and spend” isn’t better than the “tax and spend” mantra often leveled.
Think we need to reel in such spending? Great. That’s Republican—until you talk about which programs you want to cut. “Wait! I just want to cut the waste!” You know it’s not as easy as that, right? And I’m sure you know cutting your household spending isn’t as easy as deciding to do it.
Take health care. The U.S. spends more per capita than any nation—yet we’re the only industrial nation without universal health care—25% of Americans uninsured. So what? Their problem? Not when their serious conditions find their way to the emergency room at tax payer expenses instead of cheaper preventions. “Yeah, but universal health care will mean trade-offs!” You don’t think we have trade-offs now? Even if you think we should just abandon those people without means, that will inevitably affect the crime rate for people with no options and nothing less to lose. Fine? More law and order? That costs money too.
Or military spending. The U.S. spends more on the military than any other nation by a fantastic margin. Overkill? What are we really getting for it? Rumsfeld sent us down a path (ignoring Gen. Colin Powell—what the hell does HE know about Iraq…) merely stretching and demoralizing our forces, even causing commissioned officers to quit in droves. That’s money down the drain.
Much of this economic mumbo-jumbo is built on misunderstandings. In the 1920s. Americans benefited from sales to Europe, temporarily ravaged by WWI. It didn’t last, catching up to us in the 1930s. Prosperity returned in the 1950s—selling to a Europe ravaged by WWII, but again, this couldn’t last. In the 1960s, Democrat presidents ran up the deficit, and in the stagflation years of the 1970s, conservative Republican Nixon abolished the gold standard to allow currency to float—and wisely so, to the chagrin of conservatives.
Here’s the thing. We talk about liberals and conservatives, but we inherit these labels and their positions from talk radio instead of thinking for ourselves. Consequently, we even end up voting for the people whose positions we oppose—we just don’t know it.
Writer
Other discussions in both the classroom and the corner store reveal a disturbing reality—people pick their favorite label, then their views. Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative—these seem to be just words divorced from popular policy, and those misunderstandings lead to poor national choices.
Consider the proud Republicans who argue we must protect American jobs from foreign competition. Are they aware this is the Democrats’ position? Republicans would argue for free trade. NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) especially seems to be a lightning rod, approved under President Clinton, despite the reality that the pact created ten times the number of jobs as it initially cost, the benefit continuing, the cost history, affected employees the beneficiaries of funding to cover the transition (and that funding exceeded the cost).
The WTO (World Trade Organization) also draws some fire, while other lesser known but important agreements, such as cooperation among the Pacific rim nations, seem to escape the radar. Any introductory macroeconomics text can lay out the well established case that such international trade benefits all parties (see comparative advantage). Why the opposition? More benefits are imported than exported.
At the same time, the same people oppose the United Nations, or any attempt at meaningful international law. So, while importing inexpensive food, clothing, toys, and so forth, we also abdicate the safety standards we trust in the U.S., putting ourselves at risk. Sound counterproductive?
How about fiscal responsibility? Instead of runaway spending and high taxes, we should pay as we go!
Not a Republican position—Reagan quadrupled the national debt, changing the largest creditor nation into the largest debtor nation. Clinton turned that around, generating the largest peacetime expansion in U.S. history, upsetting the conventional hawkish view that expanding economies need a war. Bush brought the U.S. back to both war and burgeoning deficits.
Interestingly, here Democrats and Conservatives agree! Pay for programs, wars as they come. Vice-President Cheney disagrees, claiming “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.” That’s like running up your credit card, pretending you’ll never have trouble making payments. It only works so long. As Howard Dean noted, “borrow and spend” isn’t better than the “tax and spend” mantra often leveled.
Think we need to reel in such spending? Great. That’s Republican—until you talk about which programs you want to cut. “Wait! I just want to cut the waste!” You know it’s not as easy as that, right? And I’m sure you know cutting your household spending isn’t as easy as deciding to do it.
Take health care. The U.S. spends more per capita than any nation—yet we’re the only industrial nation without universal health care—25% of Americans uninsured. So what? Their problem? Not when their serious conditions find their way to the emergency room at tax payer expenses instead of cheaper preventions. “Yeah, but universal health care will mean trade-offs!” You don’t think we have trade-offs now? Even if you think we should just abandon those people without means, that will inevitably affect the crime rate for people with no options and nothing less to lose. Fine? More law and order? That costs money too.
Or military spending. The U.S. spends more on the military than any other nation by a fantastic margin. Overkill? What are we really getting for it? Rumsfeld sent us down a path (ignoring Gen. Colin Powell—what the hell does HE know about Iraq…) merely stretching and demoralizing our forces, even causing commissioned officers to quit in droves. That’s money down the drain.
Much of this economic mumbo-jumbo is built on misunderstandings. In the 1920s. Americans benefited from sales to Europe, temporarily ravaged by WWI. It didn’t last, catching up to us in the 1930s. Prosperity returned in the 1950s—selling to a Europe ravaged by WWII, but again, this couldn’t last. In the 1960s, Democrat presidents ran up the deficit, and in the stagflation years of the 1970s, conservative Republican Nixon abolished the gold standard to allow currency to float—and wisely so, to the chagrin of conservatives.
Here’s the thing. We talk about liberals and conservatives, but we inherit these labels and their positions from talk radio instead of thinking for ourselves. Consequently, we even end up voting for the people whose positions we oppose—we just don’t know it.
Writer
Friday, June 29, 2007
Adulthood Sucks (and so does adjunct-hood)
Remember that sweatshop essay you wrote for freshman composition? Or, if you didn’t write one, certainly your classmates did--I’ve read multiple versions of this essay in portfolio committees and General Education Assessment Review committees.
No doubt, you pointed to unfair conditions, substandard wages, and blamed callous CEOs whose only concern was the almighty dollar—let any unhappy workers leave. You probably noted that those CEOs cited even worse conditions elsewhere—hell, those workers were damn lucky to work for these low wages, as it let them climb out of poverty.
If you were particularly insightful, you noted that those CEOs work for share holders who expect a robust return on their investments, and thus, share holders, not specifically CEOs, should be held accountable. Perhaps you even realized that a free market economy would not likely achieve equitable treatment, and hence government would need to intervene (I haven’t read many of those essays).
In the case of education, you are all those share holders. Despite how people like to complain about it, you elect the government. The school boards run the schools, the governor runs SUNY (The State University of New York)—but YOU elect these “CEOs.”
SUNY colleges—universities, ag/tech colleges, community colleges—all rely on sweatshop labor. We call them adjunct professors, and we pay them around $2600 per course, or based on the work load of full time professors (three courses per term), just over $15,000 a year. Statewide, roughly 60% of instructors are so paid. (And while SUNY colleges offer these people health insurance, many others in community colleges go without.)
A few departments in a few colleges have consistently fought against such glaring injustice, pioneering and expanding, for example, hiring adjuncts as full time lecturers. Yet even here, although this development is certainly welcome, the sweatshop continues. Full time lecturers are paid just over $30,000 to teach four courses per term, and they are denied access to tenure. Thus, many of them will work, grateful they can at least pay the bills, but will retire in poverty with little to no savings. Others cover their liability by continuing to teach as many as six courses a term at other institutions ON TOP of their full time obligations, as well as a wide assortment of outside occupations--all to earn just what a typical full professor earns, but at the expense of their personal lives.
Additionally, English professors in particular do so at virtually impossible odds. First year students arrive, convinced they know everything about writing, unable to identify the subject and verb of a sentence, let alone write a specific thesis statement, angry at instructors who challenge them to grow, annoyed they have to take writing courses at all. Even worse perhaps, I consistently see Juniors and Seniors—English majors, Professional Writing majors, Education majors and so forth—who can’t write without such basic errors as comma splice run-ons, subject/verb agreement, pronoun/antecedent agreement, misplaced modifiers, faulty parallelism—let alone effective paragraphs, sentences, rhetorical purpose. Those instructors who push this face the wrath of students seeking the easiest way through their course work possible, encouraged by administrative policies that abdicate responsibility for oversight to the course evaluation forms students complete at the end of each course, thus encouraging faculty to teach to make students happy, rather than prepare them for the outside world. So we graduate students who can’t write.
Well, suppose students want to learn in such an environment: where are all these instructors in the face of such obstacles? In their cars, on the way to their next college job—or jobs.
The pattern isn’t new—why are so many high school graduates, “A” papers in hand, so poorly prepared? Large class sizes, overly protective parents, ideologically focused school boards? Hard to tell—probably several interlocking reasons.
Here’s where you, the share holder, come in.
Changing this takes money. This means paying more in taxes—or giving up other services. I can complain all I want about my “bill burden,” but my choices are (1) increase income or (2) cut expenses. Government is no different.
Here’s the reality—you own a sweatshop. What will you do?
Is education important? Are fair employment practices? Is this what you want for your family, your community, your society?
We frequently see complaints about high taxes, but we pay a fraction of the taxes most industrial nations pay (we are also the ONLY industrial nation without national health care!). Washington keeps touting tax cuts to stimulate the economy, but ignores the growing discrepancy between rich and poor since the Reagan fallacy, admitted by his own people, created by the “trickle down” economics preached by the much more cynical Bush administration? Have you noticed that each federal tax cut costs you more locally? And for all those complaints about high taxes in New York—have you lived in other states? Yes, the taxes may be lower—and you also can’t get the services New Yorkers enjoy.
Sure, the mantra drones on about wasted government money. Yet, the U.S. spends more on the military than EVERY NATION ON EARTH COMBINED. Overkill?
Here’s the point—as a citizen, you are the shareholder. You, implicitly, agree with these developments. You, the shareholder, could also decide to instruct your “board of directors” otherwise. You could make it clear that education is a priority in New York State, or in whatever state or country you live, and that running sweatshops is not acceptable.
Or was that freshman composition essay just talk?
Writer
No doubt, you pointed to unfair conditions, substandard wages, and blamed callous CEOs whose only concern was the almighty dollar—let any unhappy workers leave. You probably noted that those CEOs cited even worse conditions elsewhere—hell, those workers were damn lucky to work for these low wages, as it let them climb out of poverty.
If you were particularly insightful, you noted that those CEOs work for share holders who expect a robust return on their investments, and thus, share holders, not specifically CEOs, should be held accountable. Perhaps you even realized that a free market economy would not likely achieve equitable treatment, and hence government would need to intervene (I haven’t read many of those essays).
In the case of education, you are all those share holders. Despite how people like to complain about it, you elect the government. The school boards run the schools, the governor runs SUNY (The State University of New York)—but YOU elect these “CEOs.”
SUNY colleges—universities, ag/tech colleges, community colleges—all rely on sweatshop labor. We call them adjunct professors, and we pay them around $2600 per course, or based on the work load of full time professors (three courses per term), just over $15,000 a year. Statewide, roughly 60% of instructors are so paid. (And while SUNY colleges offer these people health insurance, many others in community colleges go without.)
A few departments in a few colleges have consistently fought against such glaring injustice, pioneering and expanding, for example, hiring adjuncts as full time lecturers. Yet even here, although this development is certainly welcome, the sweatshop continues. Full time lecturers are paid just over $30,000 to teach four courses per term, and they are denied access to tenure. Thus, many of them will work, grateful they can at least pay the bills, but will retire in poverty with little to no savings. Others cover their liability by continuing to teach as many as six courses a term at other institutions ON TOP of their full time obligations, as well as a wide assortment of outside occupations--all to earn just what a typical full professor earns, but at the expense of their personal lives.
Additionally, English professors in particular do so at virtually impossible odds. First year students arrive, convinced they know everything about writing, unable to identify the subject and verb of a sentence, let alone write a specific thesis statement, angry at instructors who challenge them to grow, annoyed they have to take writing courses at all. Even worse perhaps, I consistently see Juniors and Seniors—English majors, Professional Writing majors, Education majors and so forth—who can’t write without such basic errors as comma splice run-ons, subject/verb agreement, pronoun/antecedent agreement, misplaced modifiers, faulty parallelism—let alone effective paragraphs, sentences, rhetorical purpose. Those instructors who push this face the wrath of students seeking the easiest way through their course work possible, encouraged by administrative policies that abdicate responsibility for oversight to the course evaluation forms students complete at the end of each course, thus encouraging faculty to teach to make students happy, rather than prepare them for the outside world. So we graduate students who can’t write.
Well, suppose students want to learn in such an environment: where are all these instructors in the face of such obstacles? In their cars, on the way to their next college job—or jobs.
The pattern isn’t new—why are so many high school graduates, “A” papers in hand, so poorly prepared? Large class sizes, overly protective parents, ideologically focused school boards? Hard to tell—probably several interlocking reasons.
Here’s where you, the share holder, come in.
Changing this takes money. This means paying more in taxes—or giving up other services. I can complain all I want about my “bill burden,” but my choices are (1) increase income or (2) cut expenses. Government is no different.
Here’s the reality—you own a sweatshop. What will you do?
Is education important? Are fair employment practices? Is this what you want for your family, your community, your society?
We frequently see complaints about high taxes, but we pay a fraction of the taxes most industrial nations pay (we are also the ONLY industrial nation without national health care!). Washington keeps touting tax cuts to stimulate the economy, but ignores the growing discrepancy between rich and poor since the Reagan fallacy, admitted by his own people, created by the “trickle down” economics preached by the much more cynical Bush administration? Have you noticed that each federal tax cut costs you more locally? And for all those complaints about high taxes in New York—have you lived in other states? Yes, the taxes may be lower—and you also can’t get the services New Yorkers enjoy.
Sure, the mantra drones on about wasted government money. Yet, the U.S. spends more on the military than EVERY NATION ON EARTH COMBINED. Overkill?
Here’s the point—as a citizen, you are the shareholder. You, implicitly, agree with these developments. You, the shareholder, could also decide to instruct your “board of directors” otherwise. You could make it clear that education is a priority in New York State, or in whatever state or country you live, and that running sweatshops is not acceptable.
Or was that freshman composition essay just talk?
Writer
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