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[R]educe taxes on individuals, corporations and capital gains earnings, make permanent a research and development tax credit, enact medical malpractice reform, pass a law codifying President Barack Obama’s proposal to require cost-benefit analysis in the creation of government regulations, increase federal loan guarantees for nuclear power, lift restrictions for offshore drilling, ratify trade agreements and overhaul federal work force training programs.
…[M]ove aggressively to reverse the debt, [which] creates uncertainty in the economy, which discourages private investment. [Require] a statutory spending limit, providing Obama with a line-item veto authority and enacting a constitutional amendment forcing Congress to balance the federal budget.
So… we have tax cuts, tax credits, tort reform, deregulation, subsidies for energy companies, deregulation again, more NAFTAs, pretending that structural unemployment is a real thing, and austerity (except for tax cuts, obviously). Throw in another war and some gay/women/immigrant/Muslim/science-bashing, and you pretty much have… the Republican agenda for the past 30-40 years. And none of these supposed job-creation strategies do squat to create jobs.
It’s a puzzlement, until you make one little substitution, and change the word “jobs” to “corporate profits.” Suddenly the Republican “job-creation” agenda makes perfect sense, and all that confusion and cognitive dissonance just melts away like Sarah Palin’s popularity.
It’s a perfect example of the effectiveness of the GOP’s dishonest wordsmithing: If Republicans say that they’re totally committed to doing everything possible to create more corporate profits, they sound like scumbags. But if they say they’re trying to create more jobs, they sound like humanitarian populists looking out for the downtrodden and OMG why do Democrats hate jobs?
As doublespeak, I’d rank it a little ahead of calling austerity for everyone but the wealthy “shared sacrifice,” and roughly on par with calling giant campaign donations and multimillion-dollar smear ad campaigns “free speech.” But it still falls short of the GOP’s crowning achievement: Re-branding corporations, teabaggers and billionaires as “the American people.”
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ELI!
BUZZ!
Corp taxes, taxes on the rich & regulation are not yet zero. There is more work to be done.
Chair of W&M is on the job.
How long until Barry latches on to this excuse for 2012?
My problem with this is that Business in America has had most of these things for 30 years. And what they did with it was to offshore profits, offshore and outsource jobs, and send manufacturing overseas. They did not make jobs. As a matter of fact, millions and millions of people have either lost their jobs or lost their jobs and have had to move down the job and pay chain in order to survive at all. The GOP is not interested in creating jobs – they just say they are interested in creating jobs. Just like Roberts said he held to ‘stare decisis’ during his confirmation hearings and immediately after he was confirmed started trashing the whole deal. The amount of ‘using dog whistle words’ to get support by the GOP (and frankly the Dems do it too)is unbelieveable – and as recent polls indicate, Americans have gotten the message – you can’t believe any of these people. They lie.
The problem here is that between 2008 and 2010, some Democrats in Congress tried to push jobs bills but the Republicans obstructed them, solely so Obama and the Democrats would fail and 2010 would see Republican electoral victories. Of course Republicans had help from Vichycrats who were terrified of being called tax and spend liberals. Now, the Republicans are still not working to create jobs as it’s antithetical to their philosophy but the Democrats are being silent, presumably so the Republicans hang themselves on their own petard for 2012. In all of this, nobody seems to care one whit about the
peoplepawns who are the real losers in this stupid fucking game: the unemployed. I have no use for either party or anybody else who pays one upsmanship with other peoples’ lives.5, 4, 3….
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
John F. Kennedy
And that will just be a milestone; from there, they will have to figure out how to exact tribute and pay negative taxes.
ELI!
My favorite comment on that thread:
Petard is a bomb, for future ref.
KELLY!
Maybe all the rich people will establish legal residency in Alaska.
And millions of these folks voted for the asshole in the WH.
Hey, I’ve often typed that our imaginations are not wild enough to imagine what they’ll do. Your imagination is just a step beyond mine.
However, first things first. My imagination will catch up soon enough. *g*
You know what I did today? I applied for a job flipping burgers. I’m not going to get because I’m fifty, I’ve never done it before and my last job paid about 40,000 more per year than this one would. My personal references include a physicist, a clinic manager and a arts and crafts store owner. My professional references included a physician, an RN and an engineer. Through some wonderful help from my friends, some careful management and a bit of luck, I’ve managed to make it this far but it’s going to be over really soon. My savings is mostly gone and I can’t get a job flipping fucking hamburgers. This is my world. Sorry if I can’t see a lot of humor in this post.
Unemployment also can’t by definition exist until the baseline wage is zero. Otherwise, we’re just talking about greedy, insufficiently motivated parasites.
Excuse the fuck out of me.
Get out of my haid!
Absolutely right. Since it’s my own fucking fault, I’ll just leave you guys alone.
…melts away like Sarah Palin’s popularity.
words that warm the cockles of my heart.
I think.
What are cockles anyway?
Eli, aren’t corporate and bank profits at record highs, though? And aren’t corporate cash reserves higher than they’ve ever been? Must these entities have ALL the money? Do they even realize that if they have ALL the money, their customers (us) have NONE of the money?
What’s their end-game, exactly? I wish they’d be honest with us about their vision for America.
Shit, I’m sorry. But the post is not actually intended to be funny – I really do think the GOP (and a lot of Democrats) say “jobs” when they mean “profits”, and that it makes their actions a lot less inexplicable.
Here’s one for you, Eli.
Wow, that really describes our current political discourse.
I don’t think they have a concept of “enough”, only “more”.
No, feel free to fuck with us.
***Mod Note: Let’s not go any further down this path***
Yes.
Another chapter in …
I don’t think this is a humorous post on Eli’s part.
Eli uses snarky allusions to make a very serious point, a view I think you share with him. But I don’t in any way see an intent to mock or laugh at the situation Our Elites have created for the rest of us.
On edit: I see Eli has addressed this himself above.
I wonder why some of the populist/progressive campaigning styles isn’t being used to counter the extreme corporate platform. The populists/progressives had a list of reforms they wanted enacted such as direct elections of senators and an eight hour work day.
It was a rallying call and a way to determine if candidates were on their side. I’d love to see a platform calling for the following:
1. Return to the tax code of 1978.
2. Expand the VA health care system to the entire citizenry. (It’s in place, extremely good, and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel or regulate HMOs.)
3. Have Right to Work work legislation whereby all people are guaranteed a job that allows for paid vacations and a decent standard of living. (Roosevelt wanted this toward the end of his presidency.)
4. Publicly financed elections. (this may be the most important future campaign)
5. A true government bank that would make home loans and small business loans 1% over the rate of inflation.
6. Abrogate all treaties that allow jobs to go overseas and to tax the shit out of all corporations who sell here but employ elsewhere.
I’m sure I’ve missed a few, but I think the point was made.
For those who are cynical about any of this, consider that when the populist platform was written in the 1890s, their ideals were held as too lofty by many. Even closer to home to me, I would never, ever had thought that gay marriage would have come in my lifetime.
I’d like to see a populist progressive platform too, but there are precious few politicians who want to run on one, or campaign without corporate money.
I used to call this firing your customers.
I think we were discussing this last night or sometime recently.
In a consumer driven economy, this is precisely how the model would fail, in a Fukushima flameout kinda way. Longer hours, 2 jobs/HH, borrowing have enabled fundamentally insatiable consumers to keep spending despite the lack of income growth. End game for this seems to be coming close, but not here yet.
However, the Gilded Age economy worked just fine in the sense of strong growth. Did experience its bubbles & crashes, just like now.
I don’t know much about how the economy was constructed back then, so I don’t know what the driver of growth was.
I suspect it might have been exports. No longer possible for U.S., with large trade deficit.
Oh well, I have a 2 volume work in my attic, U.S. economic stats from colonial times to the present. I suppose I should stop guessing & look back & figure it out. Next rainy day…
Isn’t this why the MOTUs are trying to create a financial system where they can make money without any actual “customers” as we understand them today?
Definitely progress. But widespread unemployment and hopelessness affects everyone. What is so depressing is that we thought we had solved this problem — at least in the sense that everyone knew how destructive it was. We were wrong.
Everyone who remembered how the Great Depression happened died or retired.
That’s already happening. Think bailouts to banks and subsidies to big ag and big oil as the first examples that come to mind.
That’s not possible, at least the way you phrase it. However, if you add one little sentence…
It is only possible if the taxpayer picks up the tab for losses on leverage.
And the asshole in the WH has done EVERYTHING in his power to preserve leverage.
That is not unintentional.
***Mod Note: Let’s not go any further down this path***
Can you explain what you’re referring to, please?
what kind words. you must be a nicer person than i am. or maybe hate him less.
On Edit: this was for econobuzz.
“If a petard were to detonate prematurely due to a faulty or short slow match, the engineer would be lifted or “hoist” by the explosion. William Shakespeare used the now proverbial phrase “hoist with his own petard” in Hamlet.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBrEuAtvBwo
Oh, where are my manners?
ELI!
GREENWARRIOR!
Yep, all those proposals make sense if you substitute corporate and hing-income earner net profits in place of “jobs”, which they all too obviously would do nothing to promote. Tax cuts and credits are good only if you have income; they are better or best if you have very high income and would otherwise be subject to the highest, but still modest, rates under the American tax code (which applies only to income that hasn’t been hidden by multifarious tax avoidance schemes).
But Republicans never pretend to work in favor of anyone but high-income earners and corporations. It’s the Dems who pretend that. Their job promotion and economic recovery schemes the past year have been strangely absent. It’s almost as if they care more for the approval of their sworn enemies than their base and are legislatin’, politickin’ and compromisin’ with that in mind.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and this whole thing sucks.
But I’m SO glad Obama is tender of the people in oil rich Libya…it shows his “compassionate” side, plus, it’s a bright shiny object to distract us from the danger of a Chernobyl meltdown in Japan. Don’t think I haven’t thought of THAT either
oooooh! i’ve never seen my whole name all in caps before. it’s so exciting.
i’m so tired of republican ideas. and democrats’. our country needs a bath. sometimes i lose sleep at night wondering what i’m overlooking that if we just did that the world would be clean.
So true.
The entire GOP SOP over the last 30 years has been to use words to win over support.
They can’t say they support tax cuts for the rich because they just like the rich, they therefore lie and say it’s for the ecomony.
They can’t say they support the disenfranchisement of millions of Americans, so they lie and claim their efforts are aimed at “fraud.”
They can’t say the wanted to invade Iraq because of oil and a bit of payback for W’s father, so they lie and claim Iraq has WMD’s.
They can’t say they want everyone to own a gun to support their big donors in the arms industry, so they use their bullshit interpretation of the second amendment to do it.
They can’t say they oppose single payer because that would cut into the profits of more of those that they represent, so they lie and claim the quality of care would suffer.
They can’t claim they oppose drug re-importation because they want to keep the monopoly status for big Pharma, so they lie and claim the drugs from Canada may be dangerous.
That’s the ENTIRE GOP gameplan, and has been. They represent the rich and the powerful, and always have, but they pay big money to find the words to use to come up with bullshit reasons to support this or that so that they can fool enough people to get the job done.
They are ASSHOLES.
And the Democrats had huge majorities in both houses of Congress and could’ve pushed through major legislation and most especially a real stimulus and a real jobs program, but they CHOSE not to.
They are ASSHOLES.
Time for me to fly.
And they can’t say they hate gays and think gay marriage is icky, so they say they’re protecting the institution of marriage. I mean, who doesn’t love the institution of marriage, right?
I agree. Many politicians wouldn’t endorse it. That is why the platform would be useful. Get a candidates views on the platform and his promise to endorse it. If she or he doesn’t, oust the bum next election.
This would only work with active support. Which has materialized. In Wisconsin, Ohio, and other old populist states workers are motivated. What they need now is a long term strategy. Without it, we’ll have a corporate-feudal theocratic state in a generation.
I know dday certainly thinks that Wisconsin is the beginning of a re-energized labor and popular movement. I sure do hope he’s right.
Yep, another weapon they use often. Strawman, along with their play on words.
They can’t admit their plain hatred for gays and lesbians, so they create the strawman that gays getting married is somehow a threat to the institution of marriage.
The sad thing is how so many people that the Republicans couldn’t care any less about buy this crap hook, line, and sinker. I mean really, all one needs to do is THINK a minute. How the hell is two married gay people living down the street affecting my marriage in any way?? Of course it doesn’t, but those that buy that crap never THINK on their own.
hahahaha aint that the truth! great post eli.
Thanks, Suz!
great song, but sorry to see you go.
The VA health care system is very good?
You ust have had a different experience then myself or my spouse.
It’s russian roulette in Salem Va.
Thanks. Had it with this blog.
Sorry to hear that.
I get the best care in the world at mine.
I make an appointment to see my primary care physician just like civilians. Then, if he needs other stuff done, he just puts into the computer things like bloodwork or x-rays. I leave his office and go to the lab or x-ray, everything, no referrals needed and right in the same building, get my work done, and then it shows up on his computer with the results.
No. Paper. Ever.
Prescriptions, he enters them into a computer, I go to the pharmacy and pick them up.
I’ve never had such good and well coordinated care. I go to the VA Medical Center in Martinsburg, WV, and they are great and the folks that work there are wonderful folks.
Crap, I thought you just meant you were calling it a night. I hope you’ll reconsider.
Might I just add that BOTH parties suck and the GOP couldn’t have done it without the help of their Democratic brethren. In 2008 the Democrats had all three branches of government. They then spent their time in power obsessing over making the GOPhappy on everything from funding birth control or reproductive health to tax breaks.
I’m going to point out that it was Democratic Leader Pelosi who took single payer off the table from the outset as well as allowed Stupak to introduce his BS on health care.
Reid and Pelosi both made sure that GOP got their deals even while in minority staus. Barack Obama was making deals with McConnell on those tax breaks even though he is the minority party leader.
It isn’t as simple as pinning this solely on the GOP. Not when there is so much evidence many Democrats in power are complicit.
Four or five years after Hamlet, Guy Fawkes was hoist.
Let’s all watch V For Vendetta again. And again…
I started writing a note/disclaimer at the end of the post saying that most of what I’m accusing the Republicans of, Obama and the Democrats are guilty of to a somewhat lesser extent. But I’d have to add it to almost every single post…
First doc (urologist) I saw at Salem was great (I ended up hospitalized for 5 days). Others have been less so. I had a kidney stone again and they didn’t even bother to inform me( despite the fact that the second time they had to hospitalize me was because of a 10 mm blockage of my right kidney). I have hydronephrosis in my right kidney as well as my own zen rock garden in both of my kidneys. The urologist who saw me could have cared less when I last saw him and didn’t even request a follow up( scan was inconclusive and suggested 3 month follow up). I ended up getting the radiologist suggested follow up at a civilian clinic(which was also inconclusive).
My husband has a primary that is nice but he is like most, overworked. One day he thought he was doing my husband a favor for his knee pain when he told my husband that he put in a Rx for indocin(his nurse was relaying information to him rather than actually seeing my hubby.) Luckily I was a pharmacy tech and managed to make him aware that indocin and aspirin don’t mix before he ended up with a GI bleed. I spoke to the patient contact rep and told him that I get that PA was busy but his “favor” could have resulted in catastrophe.
No, I’ve found it’s a mixed bag, just like the civilian sector except without the choice.
But you always have the choice of going to a private doc. No law against that.
no no please dont go
the rich are subsidized by our tax dollars
ot completely
dontcha just love this guy…be still my beating heart
http://www.spiritridersfoundation.org/images/spriders/_ViggoTJ.jpg
wow thats irresponsible,the VA here is very good
Rude weighs in.
Rich People Are Eating You:
OT
Tomorrow night the full moon will be closer to the earth at any time in 18 years.
Excellent.
I’m pretty sure that’s already happened, at least for Big Oil. Not only do they have people finding ways to reduce tax payments (and others making new ones), but they get rebates. Long way around, I think Big Oil pays negative taxes.
You are buying into cwaltz characterization of the issue. VA does not do away with choice. If its bad in your area, just patronize a private doc who is better.
It’s hard out here for a pump.
and will that cause more goopers to go poastal?
Of course they do. You have forgotten to add the U.S. military warz to the subsidized cost of oil.
OOWWW OOWW the werewolves will be on the loose..OWWWWWWW!!
my 81 year old neighbor friend had a growth removed at the VA,evrything went smooth,i hd one removed from a fancy dermo in town,i think he cut a portion of my rotator cuff…..so much pain…they treat him very well,that doc Cwaltz talked about teh irresponsible
want to go to Bordeaux next month?
Meant to add much earlier in the thread that this is also code for subsidizing the rich. After all, since the rich benefit more from any policy than the poor (any policy measured in $$ has the same effect) it follows that CB analysis always benefits the rich. Something they don’t point out to you in your econ courses.
Yup. Love that caustic tone. Do you suppose we’ll be seeing that sort of pointed reference on the Sunday morning yap fests anytime soon? I’m inclined to think not, but there’s always that possibility…not dissimilar to the odds of witnessing a pack of bank jackal executives frog-marched into a supermax federal penitentiary. Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon celled up together? Sauntering out to The Main Yard for a bit of R&R? That would make for PPV-level entertainment.
i replanted 200 tiny tomato plants today,
http://tinyfarmblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/spr09_first-tomato-seedlings.jpg
And here I just thought it was code for “add another mechanism to make regulation difficult or impossible”…
These are all things we will eternally pine for.
Exactly. Incompetents are found in both private & public sectors.
In medicine, the BIG problem is economics, not quality. (Unless you are superrich or have one of the scarce remaining coverages that includes superexpensive care). And the bigger economic problems in med care are in private, though public med care costs in the U.S. are a crime too.
But choice is not the issue. Cost is.
email me.
That too.
But shame on me for not realizing it was code for benefiting the rich. Book I read last summer pointed it out.
To my defense, one can never recognize everything that is obvious once it is pointed out to you. But you can do a better job at ferreting it out if you are alert to the pattern.
Werewolves are on their own. I am about bled dry. The vampires should form a union.
irony
Bush/Cheney block stem cell research….who will benefit from this?
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/219493.php
will tomorrow,teh tired
The guided age was not driven by US exports. It was the westward expansion to settle the United States Continental Empire, and the mineral resources extracted.
Mmmm. I love tomatoes. I was tempted to plant some last year, but I’m really into not having to do much maintenance…
Duh. Slapping face. Of course. Thanks.
A kind of export model, since westward expansion was a form of exports.
And what is commonly referred to as an export driven economy also carries with it a form of control over natural resources.
But you put it perfectly & thanks again.
No problem. I’ll look for details.
in honor of my tomatoes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4qY22rR9tQ&feature=related
nite all
i can send ya one to put in a pot
Oh, and of course, USG support of homesteading & RRs, aka infrastructure.
Krugman’s simplistic Nobel speech (so disappointing) was: U.S. econ development occurred where RRs were built.
I live in NYS, and the Erie Canal was teh SINGLE factor that opened up the west to econ development. Built where it was bc it was the only place in the east where you didn’t have to go over mountains to open the west up for development.
And it still goes on. There is Pebble mine and corporate takeover of the fisheries. Not any of this will benefit the people. In fact i swear they are trying to starve the indigenous peoples for any resource they can get. My ire grows every day.
Thanks, but I can probably do that. Hadn’t thought of it, though. Heck, I could even put a planter of them on my deck. I imagine there are places that can recommend good kinds of tomatoes to do that with, right? Or do most of them have shallow roots?
EDIT: Oh, look, interesting advice here.
Also, Chinese going around the globe looking for ways to get cheap control over hydrocarbons. But they are much smarter than the western colonialists. They just buy the resources on teh cheap. They don’t actually take over the territory, which these days is far more expensive than just buying the resource. Colonialism was economically efficient at the start but turned out to be not so much after decades had passed, locals got belligerent & military had to enforce colonial regimes.
Funny, that strikes me as our strategy, if you add in corrupting local governments. It’s only been recently that we’ve gotten back into the holding territory business, since it didn’t work out so well in the Philippines.
U.S. has been trying to occupy other people’s territory since before it was a country. One of the early battles of the Rev War was colonials invasion of Canada.
I do. (we’ve got decent coverage where we have a co pay for a reasonable sum)It’s cost prohibitive for lots of folks though. And with the VA system the fact that you’re doctor isn’t listening may not mean you have the option of a second opinion like I was able to do.
See my subsequent comments about economics vs. choice.
You do not choose your practioner. You are placed in a clinic. The doctor may be top notch. My first urologist there was outstanding. So was the second. They rotate them out pretty quick. I’m pretty sure the private sector pays better. My third urologist was a putz. Thanks to the fact that we have the means to go to a civilian sector doctor for a $35 co pay I dispensed myself of that option. Many people who go to the VA don’t have that option though. It’s cost prohibitive. The reason I went there to begin with was initially I could not afford coverage while employed at Walmart(co pay insurance would have cost me 1/3 my check and a $500 deductible definitely would not have happened) and Kroger(not offered to employees until they were employed for a year and a half although full coverage at that point.) I stayed because the first 2 were good doctors, I prefer continuity of care in terms of knowing my initial kidney size and I didn’t want to go through a battery of tests again . I ended up copying my VA record to avoid redoing everything.
We’ll have to disagree on there always being a choice. Your means and the availability of options pretty much dictate whether or not you get a choice.
Is being placed in a clinic and hoping you get a good doctor better than nothing? Sure. Is it better than being able to research your doctor for yourself and make an informed choice. Probably not.
Ding. My point exactly. The problem is NOT choice, it is cost.
I, as a macroeconomist, have been watching this problem for 2 decades, and to get on my radar in 1991, the economics had to have been outrageous long before.
There’s the crux of the economic problem, which is the knowledge gap btw buyer & seller. The purveyor of medical services has economic power over you to his superior knowledge and your vulnerability, being sick.
In economics, this is called a market imperfection.
I dubbed it mafia of the intellectia.
Thanks. I’ve become an expert on empires, I think. I lived through the dissolution of two and am witnessing the dissolution of a third. That I never though I’d witness.
It’s hard to draw parallels without history, and I always took history as a minor course while pursuing science as the major courses.
You live in my favorite part of the US. I lived in Woodstock for a year, and that was a very good experience. My neighbors, a wonderful couple, were a part of the Woodstock Maverick series, and I enjoyed those very much.
We did have a very surprising discussion over notes, half notes and quarter notes, and they asked me “What is a minim?” from the South African Musical “Wait a minim”.
I was stunned, very, very surprised, to discover the names for notes between the UK and the US was so different.
Demand That These Bold, Progressive Policies Be Included In The Democratic Party Platform – 2012! Sign petition below…
1. Never renew the Bush tax cuts
2. National Infrastructure Bank – run by engineers, not politicians. Federal government nvest $2 trillion over 10 years to create jobs now and increase productivity later. Put millions back to work. Fund with a millionaire’s tax
3. Reform Budget – balance the budget by raising taxes on the super-rich, contain the explosion of health-care costs, end agricultural subsidies, stop corporate welfare, cut the defense budget, end the wars (another form of corporate welfare)
4. Reform Health Care – add the public option. Allow Medicare to purchase drugs. Give MEDPAC wider authority. Allow drug re-importation
5. Create A Carbon Tax – to reduce consumption, increase energy efficiency and make alternative energy more cost-competitive. Revenues generated should go to reducing payroll taxes to stimulate employment
6. Reform Education – make higher education free to families that can’t afford it to encourage upward mobility in society. Fund with a financial transactions and bank tax
7. Reform Wall St. – break up the big banks and strengthen the Volker Rule
8. Reform Federal Elections – enact the Fair Elections Now Act. Strictly voluntary. Matching funds. $100.00 maximum donation.
9. Reform Social Security – raise the ceiling on income subject to the Social Security tax to $180,000 to restore solvency in the out years
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/18/demand-that-these-bold-progressive-policies-are-included-in-the-democratic-party-platform—2012/
Well, they did create jobs. It’s just that the jobs were in other countries which allowed for higher corporate profits. From what I can see, there’s no reason to believe their new job creation agenda won’t do the same thing, at least until the costs of doing business here are on a par with those in Guatemala.