When I worked for the U.S. Labor Department, one of my duties was to attend and participate in the graduation banquets for all of the federally recognized and registered apprenticeship programs here in south Louisiana. I was tasked with being the keynote speaker on these occasions. Wait, don't smirk, it was tougher than you think. I mean, unless you happen to be an out and out shameless and unredeemed hustler, like any of the current Tea Party favorite presidential candidates, motivational speaking always seems too far over the line of cheesy to pull off as a tasteful performance. The only thing the cads who usually do it manage to get moving is my intestinal track.
My reliably safe yet appropriate story, which mostly got the hands busy clapping rather than aiming the silverware my way, involved parts which were true in my own experience as well as some I lifted from an obscure short piece of fiction I had enjoyed years before. You can guess at the mixture.
It was about my best high school buddy, Antny Santa Bataglia. In our day, the circus still came to town once a year, and set up in the old Municipal Auditorium. We loved it. Especially Antny. One day, he ran away and joined it.
I saw him just twice again, when the circus came back to town. He was then only a set up hand. Later, he became part of the high wire act. One evening, his sister, Angela, called to tell me he had been killed in a fall, performing in a now forgotten small hamlet in Iowa. She also told me they had learned that Antny loved his work so well, he somewhere along the line had had a high wire image tattooed on the bottom of his feet. Well, that became a topping off line for my encouragement to the graduating apprentices.
Today, I work with a great many construction hands who reflect that same relationship with their work. They are good at what they do and put on a real show. Although most of them are also very good union brothers and sisters, they are far more reticent about letting it show outside of the workplace. They usually figure being a valuable and productive employee is all the service their union needs or expects. But it takes more than that. Our enemies are dedicated to our demise, and must be met head-on.
It is not enough to keep our beliefs and convictions to ourselves, like Antny. Our union identity cannot only be stamped on the dues ticket in our pocket. We need to let it show like it was tattooed on our foreheads.
New Orleans Labor Voice
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Promises, Promises?
This is the day the waters rose, the day after we dodged the bullet. The day the Army Corps of Engineers' promises and levees failed. They had said we were protected from a Category 3 storm, that is what we got; they were wrong.
But now, at least, they have learned their lesson. Having almost completed 14 billion dollars of work on improved protection, they don't promise us much. Yesterday the paper was filled up with a flood of information on ways the whole system can fail in the face of rising sea and river levels, as well as storm surge. So, there you have it, no promise, no delivery, no responsibility.
Meanwhile, our no drama President is also proving happy and content not to rise to the challenges in his line of work. Umm, that would be figuring out ways to make sure we can get into or stay in some line of work of some sort, preferably one which at least pays the bills. When elected, he said he would do just that, he has not. Now, he has promised to promise us something after Labor Day. Uh, huh. His recent new appointment to head the Council of Economic Advisors promises only more of the same.
So, here we are. I don't know quite what to make of the promise to be promised something. Never heard of such before. But I do know the promise of more of the same means a lot more of less. The temptation is to say, we're all through with promises, promises. But not so fast.
Even broken promises, like the broken Corps of Engineers' levees, are better than none at all. I can promise you this: Every promise may not produce performance, but performance itself only comes from a promise.
But now, at least, they have learned their lesson. Having almost completed 14 billion dollars of work on improved protection, they don't promise us much. Yesterday the paper was filled up with a flood of information on ways the whole system can fail in the face of rising sea and river levels, as well as storm surge. So, there you have it, no promise, no delivery, no responsibility.
Meanwhile, our no drama President is also proving happy and content not to rise to the challenges in his line of work. Umm, that would be figuring out ways to make sure we can get into or stay in some line of work of some sort, preferably one which at least pays the bills. When elected, he said he would do just that, he has not. Now, he has promised to promise us something after Labor Day. Uh, huh. His recent new appointment to head the Council of Economic Advisors promises only more of the same.
So, here we are. I don't know quite what to make of the promise to be promised something. Never heard of such before. But I do know the promise of more of the same means a lot more of less. The temptation is to say, we're all through with promises, promises. But not so fast.
Even broken promises, like the broken Corps of Engineers' levees, are better than none at all. I can promise you this: Every promise may not produce performance, but performance itself only comes from a promise.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
The Louisiana Bus
I was beat, and it felt good. You've probably had that feeling. It comes from pouring what you've got into what matters. That exertion ran from the early morning through most of Saturday.
Afterwards, I made it over to my favorite local grocery, the Breaux Mart on Magazine Street, to lay in a supply of Abita satsuma brew and other necessities for a relaxing Sunday. I had decided not to work on any new posts this weekend, as much because of a lack of time as my conviction that the most recent post on Friday, which focused on the subject of unemployment, should concern us more than any other single issue today. It is a national disaster and disgrace. It deserves our full attention, contemplation, and understanding, for the tragic human wreckage it is causing.
Hence, I was content to let it stand first in line on the blog, not obscured by any new entries for a couple of days. But an irresistibly seductive metaphor for Saturday's work, overheard in a snippet of conversation as I crossed the parking lot, took advantage of my weakened condition.
"I'm talkin' about the Louisiana bus," screeched a jerky, worn ebony woman, dancing on the edge of her last nerves. Her disinterested man was unmoved. It was all I heard, but I was caught. She had in mind the Louisiana Avenue bus, which runs across a good part of uptown and central city New Orleans, along a route passing a block from the grocery. And she decided my mind to tell you a bit about the history of this neighborhood and this state.
That portion of the Louisiana Avenue bus route from the river to Magazine Street constitutes the western border of the neighborhood known as the Irish Channel. It is where I was born and where I live today. It was named for the wave of starving, poor, laboring Irish immigrants who settled in this area of New Orleans in the late 1800s. By the 1920s, my polyglot family had planted its roots in the Channel. These Cockneys, Germans, and Italians were themselves scramblers and survivors, with a bent for hard work and a nose for politics.
After service with the Army in the European theatre during WWII, my uncle, Nick Lapara, went to work for Industrial Electric, a motor and neon sign company on Magazine Street. When my father returned from service with the Marines in the Pacific, Nick got him a job with Industrial. They both became union members, and remained union men for life. They married sisters, and started families in the same apartment house my grandmother owned and lived in on Jackson Avenue, another major artery in the Channel. That was life in the city. So was politics.
Nick had political talent and drive. He was very active and quickly became the designated Ward Leader of what was known as the Old Regular Democratic Party. In 1956, he won a seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives, the same year Earl Long was returned to the Governor's office, following a four year hiatus occasioned by the prohibition on consecutive terms at that time. Nick's campaign cost all of 300 dollars, which was mostly spent to rent a station wagon outfitted with roof mounted bull horns and used to drive around the neighborhoods urging votes for the "people's champion." I can still hear it. I'm sure the rest of the money went to buy drinks.
Earl Long, like his brother Huey, was a political progressive. He was a stout and steadfast liberal on labor and race issues. In the very first legislative session after the 1956 election, Nick and Governor Long, along with other progressives, got busy straightening out the mess produced by the preceding so-called "reform" governor, Robert Kennon. They sought and achieved repeal of the state's first right-to-work law, which Kennon had backed. To this day, there is, hanging in the Greater New Olreans AFL-CIO office, an "Honor Roll" plaque listing the names of the legislators who voted to repeal that awful anti-labor law. IBEW local 130 member, Nick Lapara, is on the list. I'm proud of that, as all IBEW members should be. I'm also proud of the fact that Nick ultimately lost his representative's seat because, like Earl Long, he was a liberal on race and stood bravely in favor of integrating all of the city's public housing, including the then all white St. Thomas Project in his district.
I tell this story not because Nick was my uncle. I tell it because I know it. I tell it because it is important. I tell it because if I don't tell it, no one else will. Most people don't even know that there was a right-to-work law in Louisiana prior to the one enacted in 1976. Judging by information published on the Internet, the Louisiana PBS affiliate in Baton Rouge doesn't even know it. That is not only a shame, it's downright scary.
If we are to win despite the odds and wrongs against us in our day, we need to appreciate that those who came before us enjoyed circumstances no stronger than our own, yet managed to take on great challenges and overcome them. If I believe nothing else in this world, I believe we have it in us to do the same. We have it in us to move forward, to make a better way, to turn back the claims of the greedy, to face down the bullying of the powerful, to flood light over the darkness of ignorance, and to make tomorrow a brighter day.
On Saturday, a number of us were out breathing life into those sentiments. We were campaigning with our bright young candidate for the district 103 state representative seat, Chad Lauga. We traveled down to the lower reaches of Plaquemines parish. In that it snakes along the river, Plaquemines makes its residential pattern a considerable stretch of real work for this sort of campaigning, but Chad and this team were easily its match. I'm sure many of you know that Chad is a member of local 130, and our lobbying point man in Baton Rouge. What you may not know, but can be confident of, is that he is going to win this election. We can and will make history, again.
As we went through the day, I thought about the old station wagon with the roof top bull horns from that long ago campaign, and the various personal vehicles our team employed in undertaking this effort. I also found myself comparing our transportation, past and present, to that ridiculously extravagant, hulking, and ponderously silly 2 million dollar bus Obama hit the political trail in a week ago. I really don't know if he has a seat for us anywhere on that ride. I have a lot more confidence in the direction our little metaphorical Louisiana bus tour is headed. And I know, with effort and time, we can close whatever distance lies between our present circumstances and a place of full and meaningful participation in the social, economic and political discourse and decisions in this state and in this country. Indeed, today we also remember another long ago campaign in which Rosa Parks demonstrated that, however humble the beginning, a just cause carries us all forward from the back of the bus.
Afterwards, I made it over to my favorite local grocery, the Breaux Mart on Magazine Street, to lay in a supply of Abita satsuma brew and other necessities for a relaxing Sunday. I had decided not to work on any new posts this weekend, as much because of a lack of time as my conviction that the most recent post on Friday, which focused on the subject of unemployment, should concern us more than any other single issue today. It is a national disaster and disgrace. It deserves our full attention, contemplation, and understanding, for the tragic human wreckage it is causing.
Hence, I was content to let it stand first in line on the blog, not obscured by any new entries for a couple of days. But an irresistibly seductive metaphor for Saturday's work, overheard in a snippet of conversation as I crossed the parking lot, took advantage of my weakened condition.
"I'm talkin' about the Louisiana bus," screeched a jerky, worn ebony woman, dancing on the edge of her last nerves. Her disinterested man was unmoved. It was all I heard, but I was caught. She had in mind the Louisiana Avenue bus, which runs across a good part of uptown and central city New Orleans, along a route passing a block from the grocery. And she decided my mind to tell you a bit about the history of this neighborhood and this state.
That portion of the Louisiana Avenue bus route from the river to Magazine Street constitutes the western border of the neighborhood known as the Irish Channel. It is where I was born and where I live today. It was named for the wave of starving, poor, laboring Irish immigrants who settled in this area of New Orleans in the late 1800s. By the 1920s, my polyglot family had planted its roots in the Channel. These Cockneys, Germans, and Italians were themselves scramblers and survivors, with a bent for hard work and a nose for politics.
After service with the Army in the European theatre during WWII, my uncle, Nick Lapara, went to work for Industrial Electric, a motor and neon sign company on Magazine Street. When my father returned from service with the Marines in the Pacific, Nick got him a job with Industrial. They both became union members, and remained union men for life. They married sisters, and started families in the same apartment house my grandmother owned and lived in on Jackson Avenue, another major artery in the Channel. That was life in the city. So was politics.
Nick had political talent and drive. He was very active and quickly became the designated Ward Leader of what was known as the Old Regular Democratic Party. In 1956, he won a seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives, the same year Earl Long was returned to the Governor's office, following a four year hiatus occasioned by the prohibition on consecutive terms at that time. Nick's campaign cost all of 300 dollars, which was mostly spent to rent a station wagon outfitted with roof mounted bull horns and used to drive around the neighborhoods urging votes for the "people's champion." I can still hear it. I'm sure the rest of the money went to buy drinks.
Earl Long, like his brother Huey, was a political progressive. He was a stout and steadfast liberal on labor and race issues. In the very first legislative session after the 1956 election, Nick and Governor Long, along with other progressives, got busy straightening out the mess produced by the preceding so-called "reform" governor, Robert Kennon. They sought and achieved repeal of the state's first right-to-work law, which Kennon had backed. To this day, there is, hanging in the Greater New Olreans AFL-CIO office, an "Honor Roll" plaque listing the names of the legislators who voted to repeal that awful anti-labor law. IBEW local 130 member, Nick Lapara, is on the list. I'm proud of that, as all IBEW members should be. I'm also proud of the fact that Nick ultimately lost his representative's seat because, like Earl Long, he was a liberal on race and stood bravely in favor of integrating all of the city's public housing, including the then all white St. Thomas Project in his district.
I tell this story not because Nick was my uncle. I tell it because I know it. I tell it because it is important. I tell it because if I don't tell it, no one else will. Most people don't even know that there was a right-to-work law in Louisiana prior to the one enacted in 1976. Judging by information published on the Internet, the Louisiana PBS affiliate in Baton Rouge doesn't even know it. That is not only a shame, it's downright scary.
If we are to win despite the odds and wrongs against us in our day, we need to appreciate that those who came before us enjoyed circumstances no stronger than our own, yet managed to take on great challenges and overcome them. If I believe nothing else in this world, I believe we have it in us to do the same. We have it in us to move forward, to make a better way, to turn back the claims of the greedy, to face down the bullying of the powerful, to flood light over the darkness of ignorance, and to make tomorrow a brighter day.
On Saturday, a number of us were out breathing life into those sentiments. We were campaigning with our bright young candidate for the district 103 state representative seat, Chad Lauga. We traveled down to the lower reaches of Plaquemines parish. In that it snakes along the river, Plaquemines makes its residential pattern a considerable stretch of real work for this sort of campaigning, but Chad and this team were easily its match. I'm sure many of you know that Chad is a member of local 130, and our lobbying point man in Baton Rouge. What you may not know, but can be confident of, is that he is going to win this election. We can and will make history, again.
As we went through the day, I thought about the old station wagon with the roof top bull horns from that long ago campaign, and the various personal vehicles our team employed in undertaking this effort. I also found myself comparing our transportation, past and present, to that ridiculously extravagant, hulking, and ponderously silly 2 million dollar bus Obama hit the political trail in a week ago. I really don't know if he has a seat for us anywhere on that ride. I have a lot more confidence in the direction our little metaphorical Louisiana bus tour is headed. And I know, with effort and time, we can close whatever distance lies between our present circumstances and a place of full and meaningful participation in the social, economic and political discourse and decisions in this state and in this country. Indeed, today we also remember another long ago campaign in which Rosa Parks demonstrated that, however humble the beginning, a just cause carries us all forward from the back of the bus.
Friday, August 26, 2011
It's Their Religion
James Carville's celebrated political epiphany was an effective rallying cry to motivate his troops in a campaign. But his strategic insight, "It's the economy, Stupid," just doesn't get at the deeper problems today. These issues really come down to: It's our society, Stupid.
We know how to counter wrong-headed economic thinking, and how to clean up an economic train wreck, after things have gone badly off-track. Those things we learned long ago in the Great Depression. Yet today we are again having to overcome the myth-making money and power of plutocratic propaganda, in order to break its hold on the prejudiced minds of far too many, and to move on to a better day.
I like the direct approach. "What is the compelling evidence that the vision of a competitive, efficient economy allocating resources to the right uses is actually a good description of the world we live in?"
That rhetorical question comes from Princeton University Professor and Noble Economics Laureate, Paul Krugman. He posed it in a piece debunking the nonsense of conservative arguments proclaiming the purity and consistent reliability of unregulated free market performance. In fact, there is no more empirical evidence to support the core claims of conservative right wing unregulated market performance than there is to prove supernatural miracles, or the so-called Texas Miracle (see earlier post, The Miracle Worker). All the evidence points the other way.
As Krugman notes, markets fail. We are in the middle, or should I say at the bottom, of a gigantic example of such a failure. We are suffering cruel and massive long-term unemployment. The very definition of long-term unemployment has had to be lengthened to adequately address the need for compensation benefits. Likewise, short-term unemployment now contemplates being unemployed for a greater period of time.
An unremarked consequence of this change, however, is that it tends to disguise the true severity of the circumstances of the unemployed today, and the very nature of the problem itself. Since statistical measurement of long-term unemployment began, and up until 2008, the rate of short-term unemployment always fell as the long-term rate grew. That relationship changed with the free market financial collapse, which precipitated the current catastrophic climate of hopelessness and despair for the average working person. Today, both measurements increase together, which means that short-term unemployment is not merely a reflection of so-called frictional or labor market turn-over, but a symptom of something far more ominous.
It is not that workers are no longer needed in order for the economy to produce up to its capacity. The non-partisan CBO (Congressional Budget Office) acknowledges that GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is running at a level of output 1 trillion dollars annually below what it could be without any problem. That represents a lot of jobs, now lost until who knows when.
Business has no incentive to invest with so many out of work. Debt burdened consumers, scared they too will soon be among the jobless, are in no rush to buy. Hence, there is no demand for increased production. So, companies shed workers like unwanted weight, and manage to make as much profit or more by doing even less than ever before.
But it is an article of faith among the conservative right wing that unregulated markets always produce the best outcomes for the most people. Government intervention only makes things worse. This is a religion of sorts, and a social pathology. It allows the self-righteous well off and the credulous less well off both to think themselves very moral, while ignoring the plight of the desperate.
We know how to counter wrong-headed economic thinking, and how to clean up an economic train wreck, after things have gone badly off-track. Those things we learned long ago in the Great Depression. Yet today we are again having to overcome the myth-making money and power of plutocratic propaganda, in order to break its hold on the prejudiced minds of far too many, and to move on to a better day.
I like the direct approach. "What is the compelling evidence that the vision of a competitive, efficient economy allocating resources to the right uses is actually a good description of the world we live in?"
That rhetorical question comes from Princeton University Professor and Noble Economics Laureate, Paul Krugman. He posed it in a piece debunking the nonsense of conservative arguments proclaiming the purity and consistent reliability of unregulated free market performance. In fact, there is no more empirical evidence to support the core claims of conservative right wing unregulated market performance than there is to prove supernatural miracles, or the so-called Texas Miracle (see earlier post, The Miracle Worker). All the evidence points the other way.
As Krugman notes, markets fail. We are in the middle, or should I say at the bottom, of a gigantic example of such a failure. We are suffering cruel and massive long-term unemployment. The very definition of long-term unemployment has had to be lengthened to adequately address the need for compensation benefits. Likewise, short-term unemployment now contemplates being unemployed for a greater period of time.
An unremarked consequence of this change, however, is that it tends to disguise the true severity of the circumstances of the unemployed today, and the very nature of the problem itself. Since statistical measurement of long-term unemployment began, and up until 2008, the rate of short-term unemployment always fell as the long-term rate grew. That relationship changed with the free market financial collapse, which precipitated the current catastrophic climate of hopelessness and despair for the average working person. Today, both measurements increase together, which means that short-term unemployment is not merely a reflection of so-called frictional or labor market turn-over, but a symptom of something far more ominous.
It is not that workers are no longer needed in order for the economy to produce up to its capacity. The non-partisan CBO (Congressional Budget Office) acknowledges that GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is running at a level of output 1 trillion dollars annually below what it could be without any problem. That represents a lot of jobs, now lost until who knows when.
Business has no incentive to invest with so many out of work. Debt burdened consumers, scared they too will soon be among the jobless, are in no rush to buy. Hence, there is no demand for increased production. So, companies shed workers like unwanted weight, and manage to make as much profit or more by doing even less than ever before.
But it is an article of faith among the conservative right wing that unregulated markets always produce the best outcomes for the most people. Government intervention only makes things worse. This is a religion of sorts, and a social pathology. It allows the self-righteous well off and the credulous less well off both to think themselves very moral, while ignoring the plight of the desperate.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
It's A New Day
Everthing that needed doing, has been done. So, go ahead, sleep in. There's no schedule to keep. There's no traffic to beat. There's no duty to meet. Not today.
There's no work, that's all passe'. There are no challenges, not for you, anyway. And, oh yeah, there is no pay.
Welcome to the real "Morning in America." This is what the Republican Right has always wanted, for you to just go away. But somehow the right now seems so wrong, you say.
Then, get up and do something after all, okay?
There's no work, that's all passe'. There are no challenges, not for you, anyway. And, oh yeah, there is no pay.
Welcome to the real "Morning in America." This is what the Republican Right has always wanted, for you to just go away. But somehow the right now seems so wrong, you say.
Then, get up and do something after all, okay?
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Had Enough?
Throw a good crawfish boil here in New Orleans, and you will draw a crowd. My brother does it really well, as the pictured members of my extended family happily agree.
I love this picture for so many reasons. In the foreground is my 85 year old mother proving the value of eating healthy, Louisiana style; leaning over the table is my brother, passing out more goodies; the group as a whole is remarkably not talking all at once, and as quiet as they ever get, now that the crawfish have hit the table. Five minutes earlier, three neighbors were calling the cops on us for disturbing the peace. Also, this scene reminds me how much we love one another and a good time together; we can't get enough of either.
But there are others who can't get enough as well. There are reliable estimates that 40% of children in the richest nation on earth live in poverty. I will spare you a sad, lengthy, limitless itemization, but let's just say that means that they can't get enough of whatever it takes and means not to be poor. There are some well-reasoned estimates that as many as 17% of the working age population is unemployed; it was 24% in the Great Depression.
Then there are those who can't get enough of making things worse. The hate-filled right wingers who have campaigned against liberal government ever since it made them recognize the human dignity of all of our citizens, back in the 1960s. As a result, union rights have all but disappeared, and with them the unions themselves; business regulation has all but disappeared, and with it most of our good jobs; and government vitality has all but disappeared, and with it the ability to address the most profound issues of the day, like climate change. And to prove they can't get enough, now they're trying to make Social Security and Medicare disappear.
When will we get enough?
I love this picture for so many reasons. In the foreground is my 85 year old mother proving the value of eating healthy, Louisiana style; leaning over the table is my brother, passing out more goodies; the group as a whole is remarkably not talking all at once, and as quiet as they ever get, now that the crawfish have hit the table. Five minutes earlier, three neighbors were calling the cops on us for disturbing the peace. Also, this scene reminds me how much we love one another and a good time together; we can't get enough of either.
But there are others who can't get enough as well. There are reliable estimates that 40% of children in the richest nation on earth live in poverty. I will spare you a sad, lengthy, limitless itemization, but let's just say that means that they can't get enough of whatever it takes and means not to be poor. There are some well-reasoned estimates that as many as 17% of the working age population is unemployed; it was 24% in the Great Depression.
Then there are those who can't get enough of making things worse. The hate-filled right wingers who have campaigned against liberal government ever since it made them recognize the human dignity of all of our citizens, back in the 1960s. As a result, union rights have all but disappeared, and with them the unions themselves; business regulation has all but disappeared, and with it most of our good jobs; and government vitality has all but disappeared, and with it the ability to address the most profound issues of the day, like climate change. And to prove they can't get enough, now they're trying to make Social Security and Medicare disappear.
When will we get enough?
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
The Plastic Economy
This plastic economy has nothing to do with credit cards, that's been done. No, this new wrinkle promises to be even more punishing to the average working person than outrageous late fees and stratospheric interest rates. I'm thinking about the latest ugly wound to the prospects of some 15 million plus unemployed people in this country. It's the "Unemployed need not apply" jobs advertisements.
That's right, if you haven't yet heard, there is a new trend among employers with jobs to fill to accept applications only from those already employed. So, if you're not already working, you're just not pretty enough to work for these guys.
This would be like using the medical profession not to cure deadly and debilitating illnesses, but just to help us improve our looks. Doctors would only do the plastic bit: nose jobs, tummy tucks, boob lifts, etc.
Makes you want to give them all a workboot ass lift.
That's right, if you haven't yet heard, there is a new trend among employers with jobs to fill to accept applications only from those already employed. So, if you're not already working, you're just not pretty enough to work for these guys.
This would be like using the medical profession not to cure deadly and debilitating illnesses, but just to help us improve our looks. Doctors would only do the plastic bit: nose jobs, tummy tucks, boob lifts, etc.
Makes you want to give them all a workboot ass lift.
Monday, August 22, 2011
The Insufficiency of Work
It's early Monday mornings like this, when I'm on the border between the third coffee kicking-in and the last weekend beer fading from my mind, that I tell myself, you really have to want to go to work!
Then comes back an experience of several months ago. I was tooling up the I-10 "High Rise" (a very steeply inclined, and tall, tall bridge over the Industrial Canal in east New Orleans). Clipping along to work in my Colorado, I quickly closed in on the truly tiny "little clunker that barely could."
I had no idea what brand of vehicle it was, too old and beat to hell (it, not me). It looked like a dented up soup can on wheels, with brake lights dimly flickering every few seconds from an apparent electrical short, as it agonized up the climb, slowly getting there. Inside were five tightly packed men, the windows were up, and the driver was smoking. Heaven help them, I thought.
Then I thought, Heaven help us. It was a rolling danger to them, and all the road. I thought how scary it would be for a school bus to roll anywhere near it. Then, sure enough, one did. Fortunately, it got around it without incident. That's right, a loaded school bus had less difficulty conquering the "High Rise" than this poor working man's conveyance.
I stayed safely behind, not being overly adventurous, and watched as it pulled off the I-10, one exit ahead of my own. They went straight down the service road to a huge new apartment complex construction site. I don't know if the men were immigrants or not, much less whether legal or illegal. I'm not into profiling. But I well remember when even non-union construction hands were paid well enough to afford safe and decent transportation to work. Now, many are paid just enough to keep them coming back for more every day, any way they can get there.
As a result, we all suffer, and are at risk in many more ways than you may think. I realize now what the model of that vehicle was after all, it was the Conservative model.
Then comes back an experience of several months ago. I was tooling up the I-10 "High Rise" (a very steeply inclined, and tall, tall bridge over the Industrial Canal in east New Orleans). Clipping along to work in my Colorado, I quickly closed in on the truly tiny "little clunker that barely could."
I had no idea what brand of vehicle it was, too old and beat to hell (it, not me). It looked like a dented up soup can on wheels, with brake lights dimly flickering every few seconds from an apparent electrical short, as it agonized up the climb, slowly getting there. Inside were five tightly packed men, the windows were up, and the driver was smoking. Heaven help them, I thought.
Then I thought, Heaven help us. It was a rolling danger to them, and all the road. I thought how scary it would be for a school bus to roll anywhere near it. Then, sure enough, one did. Fortunately, it got around it without incident. That's right, a loaded school bus had less difficulty conquering the "High Rise" than this poor working man's conveyance.
I stayed safely behind, not being overly adventurous, and watched as it pulled off the I-10, one exit ahead of my own. They went straight down the service road to a huge new apartment complex construction site. I don't know if the men were immigrants or not, much less whether legal or illegal. I'm not into profiling. But I well remember when even non-union construction hands were paid well enough to afford safe and decent transportation to work. Now, many are paid just enough to keep them coming back for more every day, any way they can get there.
As a result, we all suffer, and are at risk in many more ways than you may think. I realize now what the model of that vehicle was after all, it was the Conservative model.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Good Show ... so far.
The IBEW and the CWA led some 45,000 union member Verizon employees out on strike in what is, by any measure, the worst of times for such a job action. Ummm, that is, I guess, unless you happen to be a millionaire football player. But these men and women are just hard working average earners, like most of us.
Taking such a step in the depths of this ugly economic downturn tells us all we need to know about the bad faith, cut-throat bargaining strategy the company has pursued. The recitation of the specific dollar numbers of Verizon profits, and their greedy grab for more from the employees, could never speak as eloquently as has the sheer bravery and solidarity of the union members who have stood together so strongly so far. If you want to be refreshed on the numbers, you can find them recounted in an earlier post, Can You Hear Me, Now?
What we do know that matters, however, is the hard part is yet to come. All that has been won so far is an agreement concerning a framework for more bargaining. If this is progress, the travails along the road ahead are pretty well mapped out.
As for the union's strategy, well, I heard they declined Obama's offer to help. They don't want to waste time arguing whether to give up five digits or their whole left hand.
Taking such a step in the depths of this ugly economic downturn tells us all we need to know about the bad faith, cut-throat bargaining strategy the company has pursued. The recitation of the specific dollar numbers of Verizon profits, and their greedy grab for more from the employees, could never speak as eloquently as has the sheer bravery and solidarity of the union members who have stood together so strongly so far. If you want to be refreshed on the numbers, you can find them recounted in an earlier post, Can You Hear Me, Now?
What we do know that matters, however, is the hard part is yet to come. All that has been won so far is an agreement concerning a framework for more bargaining. If this is progress, the travails along the road ahead are pretty well mapped out.
As for the union's strategy, well, I heard they declined Obama's offer to help. They don't want to waste time arguing whether to give up five digits or their whole left hand.
Putting The Drive In American Job Growth
A humble suggestion, Mr. President.
Founded in 1914, Greyhound Lines, Inc. is the largest provider of intercity bus transportation, serving more than 2,300 destinations with 13,000 daily departures across North America. It has become an American icon, providing safe, enjoyable and affordable travel to nearly 25 million passengers each year. The Greyhound running dog is one of the most-recognized brands in the world.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
A Tale of Two Crashes - Times 2
Dickens opened A Tale of Two Cities with this quote:
One might update that sensibility in these times as:
The economy immediately sagged back into depression status,where it remained stuck until the unprecedented spending brought on by the military build-up for WWII. This twist in the road to economic recovery, courtesy of massive government spending or stimulus, has served as the foundation upon which the knuckle headed Republican right has rested the specious claim that it was the war, and not the New Deal government spending, which rescued the economy at that time.
Such a notion is a distinction without a difference, a classic example of a fallacy. Still, it has proven to have enough juice that many today believe it actually has some meaning. This allows Republicans and Teacaners to wrongly promote government budget cutting and pain inducing austerity measures in tight times as growth producing and expansionary. There is nothing I know of in the political and economic world that is quite this glaringly false, yet widely believed.
As a result, Obama's original stimulus plan was whittled down to a puny restorative for a massive problem. Still, it managed to head off the total catastrophe sent our way by the horrible economic policies of the Bush administration. What would surely have been a bottomless crash, found a bottom. And that's where we have been for several years; on the bottom, but at least not still plunging.
Now, however, we find ourselves back in 1937. A Democratic President, a Democrat, is caving into the idiotic demands of right wing economic and political pressure. When we more than ever need massive government intervention to kick start and kick up this economy, President Obama has decided to heed the Republican call to just kick it. He capitulated to the newly radicalized, right wing controlled Congress, and signed off on pain and austerity budget cutting measures, guaranteed to bring forth - you guessed it - nothing but more painful and austere conditions. In a word, this economy is again on the way down. Until and unless Obama changes direction, it is hard to see when or if this economy will.
There is yet another parallel, 1937 and today, crash story I find rather interesting. It has to do with the disastrous consequences of foolishly ignoring scientific facts, in favor of doing the expedient. The 1930s were the peak of the gas-filled airship era. The German Zeppelin company was the leader of the industry. And its huge Hindenburg vessel was the largest and most impressive of the fleet.
But there was a problem. The Hindenburg depended on hydrogen gas for lift. In the original plan, Zeppelin had called for it to be helium filled. The U.S., however, owned all the natural supplies of helium, and had decided to stop making it available to Nazi controlled Germany. So, Dr. Hugo Eckner, the head of the Zeppelin company, decided, against his better judgement and earlier plans, to go with the far more volatile hydrogen gas, purely for short-term expediency. There was no effort to seek out other alternatives or to find another way. Damn the dangers.
Well, in May 1937, at Lakehurst, New Jersey naval air station, the Hindenburg exploded into flames, while attempting to tie up to its mooring masthead. The famous incident was captured on video and reported live on radio. It was stunningly horrific, so much so that it led to the end of the entire airship industry.
Today, we are stuck on fossil fuel dependence. We know that it is causing climate change. We know something of the horrific consequences which will result. But political flak apologists for the industry, along with the whole right wing side of the political spectrum, which relies upon its death grip embrace of anti-intellectual ignorance to survive, disdain and deny science. We cannot be bothered with finding a better way; we want to do what we want to do, right now! Damn the dangers.
This may engender not simply some singular, but a planetary crash. This foolish disregard for knowledge and wisdom cannot lead to the end of a long gone airship industry, but it may lead to the end of the very air as we know it.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness ...
One might update that sensibility in these times as:
It was the worst of times, it is the worst of times,
it was the age of foolishness, it is the age of foolishness ...
it was the age of foolishness, it is the age of foolishness ...
Here's why. By 1937, the New Deal was well on the way to pulling us up from the depths of the Great Depression. But the anti-government intervention plutocrats, and their political puppets in Congress, succeeded in pressuring FDR to reverse course and implement budget cutting, growth killing austerity measures. They claimed they were worried that the federal debt and deficit would result in stalling the recovery, by increasing interest rates and inflation. Sound familiar?
The economy immediately sagged back into depression status,where it remained stuck until the unprecedented spending brought on by the military build-up for WWII. This twist in the road to economic recovery, courtesy of massive government spending or stimulus, has served as the foundation upon which the knuckle headed Republican right has rested the specious claim that it was the war, and not the New Deal government spending, which rescued the economy at that time.
Such a notion is a distinction without a difference, a classic example of a fallacy. Still, it has proven to have enough juice that many today believe it actually has some meaning. This allows Republicans and Teacaners to wrongly promote government budget cutting and pain inducing austerity measures in tight times as growth producing and expansionary. There is nothing I know of in the political and economic world that is quite this glaringly false, yet widely believed.
As a result, Obama's original stimulus plan was whittled down to a puny restorative for a massive problem. Still, it managed to head off the total catastrophe sent our way by the horrible economic policies of the Bush administration. What would surely have been a bottomless crash, found a bottom. And that's where we have been for several years; on the bottom, but at least not still plunging.
Now, however, we find ourselves back in 1937. A Democratic President, a Democrat, is caving into the idiotic demands of right wing economic and political pressure. When we more than ever need massive government intervention to kick start and kick up this economy, President Obama has decided to heed the Republican call to just kick it. He capitulated to the newly radicalized, right wing controlled Congress, and signed off on pain and austerity budget cutting measures, guaranteed to bring forth - you guessed it - nothing but more painful and austere conditions. In a word, this economy is again on the way down. Until and unless Obama changes direction, it is hard to see when or if this economy will.
There is yet another parallel, 1937 and today, crash story I find rather interesting. It has to do with the disastrous consequences of foolishly ignoring scientific facts, in favor of doing the expedient. The 1930s were the peak of the gas-filled airship era. The German Zeppelin company was the leader of the industry. And its huge Hindenburg vessel was the largest and most impressive of the fleet.
But there was a problem. The Hindenburg depended on hydrogen gas for lift. In the original plan, Zeppelin had called for it to be helium filled. The U.S., however, owned all the natural supplies of helium, and had decided to stop making it available to Nazi controlled Germany. So, Dr. Hugo Eckner, the head of the Zeppelin company, decided, against his better judgement and earlier plans, to go with the far more volatile hydrogen gas, purely for short-term expediency. There was no effort to seek out other alternatives or to find another way. Damn the dangers.
Well, in May 1937, at Lakehurst, New Jersey naval air station, the Hindenburg exploded into flames, while attempting to tie up to its mooring masthead. The famous incident was captured on video and reported live on radio. It was stunningly horrific, so much so that it led to the end of the entire airship industry.
Today, we are stuck on fossil fuel dependence. We know that it is causing climate change. We know something of the horrific consequences which will result. But political flak apologists for the industry, along with the whole right wing side of the political spectrum, which relies upon its death grip embrace of anti-intellectual ignorance to survive, disdain and deny science. We cannot be bothered with finding a better way; we want to do what we want to do, right now! Damn the dangers.
This may engender not simply some singular, but a planetary crash. This foolish disregard for knowledge and wisdom cannot lead to the end of a long gone airship industry, but it may lead to the end of the very air as we know it.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Bogged Down, No Blogs Up
Whew!! This has been a busy, busy week. The seasons of the year roll on, and with them various demands. Meetings, meetings, meetings for everything from the Mardi Gras Krewe Of Thoth parade organization to the Irish Channel St. Patrick's Day Marching Club to the Chad Lauga for state representative campaign functions. More on point blogs resume tomorrow, and continue without let up forever, promise. (fingers crossed)
Thursday, August 18, 2011
zerObama ... or why I zero in on Obama
Some of my friends, yes, I have friends, are always asking me to lighten up on President Obama. They say it's enough that the right is always on his back, the left should not pile on.
Well, I'm tackling him for completely different reasons than the right, so it's not a pile on.
Much of the right wing is so benighted as to go after Barack Obama simply because he has an unusual, funny sounding name, and, to them, doesn't exactly look like a president, if you get my meaning.
On the other hand, with a name like Alfred, who am I to say something about Barack. And as for the rest of the right wing nonsense, he looks just fine to me.
I only wish he would pin his ears back and fight like a true Democrat for a change.
Well, I'm tackling him for completely different reasons than the right, so it's not a pile on.
Much of the right wing is so benighted as to go after Barack Obama simply because he has an unusual, funny sounding name, and, to them, doesn't exactly look like a president, if you get my meaning.
On the other hand, with a name like Alfred, who am I to say something about Barack. And as for the rest of the right wing nonsense, he looks just fine to me.
I only wish he would pin his ears back and fight like a true Democrat for a change.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Holy ....! Two Hacks Cut Up Working People
Yesterday, it was Thomas Friedman. In his column he surveyed the world-wide protest outbreaks, ranging from those against the Arab autocrats (his word) and Israeli oligarchs (again, his characterization) to European and American plutocrats (this time, my word; I guess Tommy didn't have his thesaurus handy). There was not the slightest suggestion that the cause of the protests and rebellions might be laid at the door of these sundry odorous ruling elites. No, it's all because of technological innovation. He claims that "routine" work has disappeared and occasioned some sort of new and modern form of structural unemployment. This is the same argument, believe it or not, that was made by apologists for the rich during the Great Depression. Well, we know what happened to that nonsense once we all had a great cause to go to work on, like whipping the Nazi menace. All we lack today is a sufficient unifying social imperative to undress this dressed up drivel. But for now, Friedman goes on pushing working people to work smarter, study harder, compete more fiercely with cheap foreign labor, and with what he is pleased to call foreign genius. He may have a small point in that if all we had to compete with were the home grown genius of intellects like Friedman's, we would all be economic gold medalists.
Then today, we find the pious Cal Thomas demeaning the poor and working people. He asserts that all the lawlessness and other bad behavior here and abroad can be ascribed to the crumbling of moral values, and lack of adherence to the teachings of a higher power. Surely one can be forgiven for lamenting the failure of saints like the reverend Mr. Thomas in not applying the same standards to the corrupt practices of abuse and abandonment of the social contract by our rich and ruling elites. After all, they are the ones who endlessly claim that God is on their side.
Then today, we find the pious Cal Thomas demeaning the poor and working people. He asserts that all the lawlessness and other bad behavior here and abroad can be ascribed to the crumbling of moral values, and lack of adherence to the teachings of a higher power. Surely one can be forgiven for lamenting the failure of saints like the reverend Mr. Thomas in not applying the same standards to the corrupt practices of abuse and abandonment of the social contract by our rich and ruling elites. After all, they are the ones who endlessly claim that God is on their side.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Is He Kidding Or Serious?
Comedy is serious work. Most of us are not naturally funny, at least not terribly so. But then again, Rick Perry is not like most of us. So, who knows what to make of his ridiculous positions?
He believes the following are all unconstitutional: Social Security, Medicare, banking regulation, minimum wage laws, evironmental protection laws, and, of course, any form of gun regulation. This list is likely not exhaustive, he also may have doubts about the constitutionality of pistachio ice cream.
He thinks the 17th Amendment was ill considered, and that we should not have the direct election of senators. I'll go him one better, I think we shouldn't have senators at all; there should be a unicameral legislature comprised of much smaller districts, and many more representatives. That way, the Congress would be more truly reflective of the people, and almost always majority Democratic.
He has recently asserted a belief that Texas has the right to secede from the union. And that it might be better off if it did. I admit, I wouldn't miss it, at least not at lot, certainly not right away. But he is running for president of the United States.
If he's not kidding, how can we take him seriously?
He believes the following are all unconstitutional: Social Security, Medicare, banking regulation, minimum wage laws, evironmental protection laws, and, of course, any form of gun regulation. This list is likely not exhaustive, he also may have doubts about the constitutionality of pistachio ice cream.
He thinks the 17th Amendment was ill considered, and that we should not have the direct election of senators. I'll go him one better, I think we shouldn't have senators at all; there should be a unicameral legislature comprised of much smaller districts, and many more representatives. That way, the Congress would be more truly reflective of the people, and almost always majority Democratic.
He has recently asserted a belief that Texas has the right to secede from the union. And that it might be better off if it did. I admit, I wouldn't miss it, at least not at lot, certainly not right away. But he is running for president of the United States.
If he's not kidding, how can we take him seriously?
Breaking News
I had a dream last night. I dreamed the morning newspaper today was filled with stories of great hope and cheer. Jobs were being created in unprecedentedly large numbers. Wages were zooming. Universal medical care was finally being implemented. The retirement age was being lowered so that people could actually enjoy the balance of their lives, doing the things they really wanted to do and developing talents they were heretofore denied the time and opportunity to pursue. The ages of progress in science and medicine and social relations were finally paying off for the average, regular, work-a-day man and woman, and their families.
Then I awoke to the usual, mostly empty Monday morning Times-Picayune. What little was offered up was really nothing new; things are about the same, no sign of improvement to speak of. And I wondered, when did we become so inured to the routine of no improvement, so accepting of no hope of real advancement in society for the lot of the average Joe?
I don't know the answer exactly, but I suspect it more or less coincides with the change in the media from fact digging and news reporting to distortion and propaganda spreading for the corporate class.
So, I think from now on, we ought to have at least one day a week of the straight scoop from the newspaper. Monday is a good day for it, they really don't do anything else with the paper on Monday anyway. From now on, use that empty news day to tell the truth.
Here's a start. The average working person in this country is hurting, and hurting badly. There are not enough jobs, and what jobs there are don't pay enough, not nearly enough on both those counts. They cannot afford to educate their kids like they need to be educated or to pay the rent. They have little or no retirement savings or any other kind of savings, only debt. They have no or insufficient medical insurance, and this is threatened daily by job separation or increasing costs. At least, most are eating, but not that well. And they are told the solution to all their ills is to get along on less.
Meanwhile, this is the richest country on the planet. But the top 400 people own more wealth than the bottom half 150 million of the population. We are told this is normal, and the way it should be; greed is good for the rich, pain is all there is for the rest. When did we start to really believe this nonsense?
Then I awoke to the usual, mostly empty Monday morning Times-Picayune. What little was offered up was really nothing new; things are about the same, no sign of improvement to speak of. And I wondered, when did we become so inured to the routine of no improvement, so accepting of no hope of real advancement in society for the lot of the average Joe?
I don't know the answer exactly, but I suspect it more or less coincides with the change in the media from fact digging and news reporting to distortion and propaganda spreading for the corporate class.
So, I think from now on, we ought to have at least one day a week of the straight scoop from the newspaper. Monday is a good day for it, they really don't do anything else with the paper on Monday anyway. From now on, use that empty news day to tell the truth.
Here's a start. The average working person in this country is hurting, and hurting badly. There are not enough jobs, and what jobs there are don't pay enough, not nearly enough on both those counts. They cannot afford to educate their kids like they need to be educated or to pay the rent. They have little or no retirement savings or any other kind of savings, only debt. They have no or insufficient medical insurance, and this is threatened daily by job separation or increasing costs. At least, most are eating, but not that well. And they are told the solution to all their ills is to get along on less.
Meanwhile, this is the richest country on the planet. But the top 400 people own more wealth than the bottom half 150 million of the population. We are told this is normal, and the way it should be; greed is good for the rich, pain is all there is for the rest. When did we start to really believe this nonsense?
Sunday, August 14, 2011
The Miracle Worker
Now we know that Texas Governor Rick Perry will be the Republican Party presidential nominee. He'll probably be the next president. They say he is a miracle worker, you know.
So, what the hey, if this guy is a miracle worker, I can predict the future. I forgive you for thinking neither of these things are true. To prove the point about the phony Texas miracle, I give you comments and a graph from Nobel economics laureate and NY TIMES columnist, Paul Krugman:
"And now Texas: there has been a long-term process of employment shifting to Sunbelt states, Texas included, largely because of the availability of cheap labor, which in turn has a lot to do with a low cost of housing. On a long-term basis, people have been willing to move to Texas despite relatively low nominal wages because housing is cheap and the cost of living relatively low. Businesses, in turn, have been steadily moving to cheap-housing states to take advantage of those low wages.
And decisions about moving facilities, or where to open new facilities, have a long lead time. That is, there’s a lot of momentum in the process, which keeps employment shifting to Texas and away from the Northeast even in the midst of a slump that depresses employment everywhere. So it’s not surprising that Texas would have positive job growth at a time when overall employment is flat – it’s just the underlying trend on which the cycle is overlaid.
Wait: there’s more. Given this long-term supply-driven trend, the fact of positive job growth does not at all mean that Texas has been recession-proof. Since the jobs are in effect following the labor force rather than the other way around, Texas needs job creation at a faster pace than the Northeast to achieve similar labor market outcomes. That’s why the “Texas miracle” hasn’t prevented a sharp rise in the unemployment rate, smaller than the rise in California or Florida – which had huge housing bubbles – but if anything more ( I changed an obvious typo in the Krugman piece, which had clearly inadvertently placed the word less here) than the rise in New York and Massachusetts.
There’s more to the Texas story, especially the role of the oil sector. But in general, you want to think of the regional impacts of the recession as a demand shock overlaid on supply-driven trends. And neither the continued existence of summer jobs nor relatively rapid job growth in the same states that had rapid job growth before the recession are at all surprising."
Click the title below for the Krugman graph.
A Short Course in Miracles
So, what the hey, if this guy is a miracle worker, I can predict the future. I forgive you for thinking neither of these things are true. To prove the point about the phony Texas miracle, I give you comments and a graph from Nobel economics laureate and NY TIMES columnist, Paul Krugman:
"And now Texas: there has been a long-term process of employment shifting to Sunbelt states, Texas included, largely because of the availability of cheap labor, which in turn has a lot to do with a low cost of housing. On a long-term basis, people have been willing to move to Texas despite relatively low nominal wages because housing is cheap and the cost of living relatively low. Businesses, in turn, have been steadily moving to cheap-housing states to take advantage of those low wages.
And decisions about moving facilities, or where to open new facilities, have a long lead time. That is, there’s a lot of momentum in the process, which keeps employment shifting to Texas and away from the Northeast even in the midst of a slump that depresses employment everywhere. So it’s not surprising that Texas would have positive job growth at a time when overall employment is flat – it’s just the underlying trend on which the cycle is overlaid.
Wait: there’s more. Given this long-term supply-driven trend, the fact of positive job growth does not at all mean that Texas has been recession-proof. Since the jobs are in effect following the labor force rather than the other way around, Texas needs job creation at a faster pace than the Northeast to achieve similar labor market outcomes. That’s why the “Texas miracle” hasn’t prevented a sharp rise in the unemployment rate, smaller than the rise in California or Florida – which had huge housing bubbles – but if anything more ( I changed an obvious typo in the Krugman piece, which had clearly inadvertently placed the word less here) than the rise in New York and Massachusetts.
There’s more to the Texas story, especially the role of the oil sector. But in general, you want to think of the regional impacts of the recession as a demand shock overlaid on supply-driven trends. And neither the continued existence of summer jobs nor relatively rapid job growth in the same states that had rapid job growth before the recession are at all surprising."
Click the title below for the Krugman graph.
A Short Course in Miracles
The factual information above will serve well as we all hear more - and endlessly more - about the mythical miracle in Texas during this campaign. Some miracle when a devilishly red state's unemployment rate is higher and growing faster than the two heretical blue and liberal states of New York and Massachusetts. But fear not, or perhaps more on point, "Be ye not afraid." If Perry starts to run short on them, I suspect he may call down more miracles at another sports arena "Pray In."
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Hear Ye! Hear Ye!
Okay, my glorious Saturday has been briefly interrupted by the importuning of well intentioned bearers of advice I have decided to act on.
I have edited the previous post:
I have edited the previous post:
Put The Life In Life
The changes simply take pains to explicitly state what I originally thought should be obvious. To wit: when I say legal discrimination was ended by the action of liberal or progressive government, I always mean and intend to convey in any and in every way possible that such was the most courageous, moral, and righteous thing to do.
The changes simply take pains to explicitly state what I originally thought should be obvious. To wit: when I say legal discrimination was ended by the action of liberal or progressive government, I always mean and intend to convey in any and in every way possible that such was the most courageous, moral, and righteous thing to do.
Please know that I always speak to people respectfully and directly. I do not condescend in any way. I assume that those who take time to read this blog are every bit as well equipped to understand the overall point of view, historical references and touchstones, etc. as I am.
Hence, I do not think elaborations of this sort will likely need to be repeated.
Put The Life In Life
Saturdays are for kids and dogs and kites and bikes. Well, at least that's true for those of us who happen to have a job, especially a union job.
For most of the rest of us, however, middle class life styles and values are as out of reach as the moon. But it wasn't so long ago when we were a very different country. We were building the Apollo Space Program, and on our way to the moon. Indeed, it seemed very much within our reach, and it was; we got there. Now, the average American is hard put to buy enough fuel to go around the block. What went wrong?
Politics, in a word. Liberal government did even better than merely rope the moon in the 60s. It tackled the far more difficult moral imperatives of insuring health care for the elderly, by inventing and establishing Medicare, and forever ending legal discrimination based on race. To its everlasting shame, the Republican Party immediately undressed, right down to its naked core ugliness.
The Nixonian "southern strategy" blatantly took aim at capitalizing on racism, and succeeded in electing the single most troubled and dysfunctional personality ever to occupy the White House.
The New Deal political coalition fractured. It has been subsequently pounded into unrecognizable pieces by reactionary, right wing, anti-government rhetoric on every issue from the ERA ( Equal Rights Amendment, for women) to the restoration of economic vitality through stimulus spending. The bigoted, hateful right has been so effective espousing sick and perverse positions, aimed at the scared and desperate, that many of the white working class (Teacaners) are now primed and poised to permanently impoverish themselves and their children by tearing up Social Security and Medicare.
The foundation upon which the middle class in this country was built and rested is largely gone. Unemployment hardly ever registers in the national political conversation. Labor standards are regarded as an impediment to the "holy sacrament" of hoary free trade. Taxes on the super-rich, or "economic royalists" as Franklin Delano Roosevelt called them, are simply "off the table." Anti-growth, wrong-headed debt reduction spending cuts are the Belle of the Ball. The legal rights of workers to organize and collectively bargain to fend off abuses suffered courtesy of the insatiable gluttony of the corporate class have all but evaporated.
Today, unions are rare coins. Hard to come by and precious. Thursday night I had the pleasure of attending our monthly union meeting. Fewer and fewer have that opportunity anymore, so I take advantage of it as often as I can, and am always cognizant of my good fortune. As a result of my union's efforts, which put the life into life, I can go out and enjoy this glorious Saturday. I wish it were so for all of us.
For most of the rest of us, however, middle class life styles and values are as out of reach as the moon. But it wasn't so long ago when we were a very different country. We were building the Apollo Space Program, and on our way to the moon. Indeed, it seemed very much within our reach, and it was; we got there. Now, the average American is hard put to buy enough fuel to go around the block. What went wrong?
Politics, in a word. Liberal government did even better than merely rope the moon in the 60s. It tackled the far more difficult moral imperatives of insuring health care for the elderly, by inventing and establishing Medicare, and forever ending legal discrimination based on race. To its everlasting shame, the Republican Party immediately undressed, right down to its naked core ugliness.
The Nixonian "southern strategy" blatantly took aim at capitalizing on racism, and succeeded in electing the single most troubled and dysfunctional personality ever to occupy the White House.
The New Deal political coalition fractured. It has been subsequently pounded into unrecognizable pieces by reactionary, right wing, anti-government rhetoric on every issue from the ERA ( Equal Rights Amendment, for women) to the restoration of economic vitality through stimulus spending. The bigoted, hateful right has been so effective espousing sick and perverse positions, aimed at the scared and desperate, that many of the white working class (Teacaners) are now primed and poised to permanently impoverish themselves and their children by tearing up Social Security and Medicare.
The foundation upon which the middle class in this country was built and rested is largely gone. Unemployment hardly ever registers in the national political conversation. Labor standards are regarded as an impediment to the "holy sacrament" of hoary free trade. Taxes on the super-rich, or "economic royalists" as Franklin Delano Roosevelt called them, are simply "off the table." Anti-growth, wrong-headed debt reduction spending cuts are the Belle of the Ball. The legal rights of workers to organize and collectively bargain to fend off abuses suffered courtesy of the insatiable gluttony of the corporate class have all but evaporated.
Today, unions are rare coins. Hard to come by and precious. Thursday night I had the pleasure of attending our monthly union meeting. Fewer and fewer have that opportunity anymore, so I take advantage of it as often as I can, and am always cognizant of my good fortune. As a result of my union's efforts, which put the life into life, I can go out and enjoy this glorious Saturday. I wish it were so for all of us.
Friday, August 12, 2011
"And It's 1, 2, 3 ...
........ What are we fighting for?"
Okay, for all who need to keep slugging away in the trenches even on Friday, one more shot.
Those of us who remember a certain era know the next line in the song quoted above, "Next stop is Vietnam."
Now, of course it's Afghanistan, and, yes, incredibly still Iraq. Uh ... Osama and Sadam are gone. Time we were, too.
The difference between the 60s and now, though, is that at least the President who was all too willing to send others into a fight of dubious justification, was himself willing to stand-up and fight hard for profoundly just and tough causes here, like civil rights and the war on poverty.
Sadly, zerObama won't even seriously fight the Republican/Teacaner philosophy of anti-middle class economic stupidity. He wants to compromise and get along with the enemy. We can, we must do better.
Okay, for all who need to keep slugging away in the trenches even on Friday, one more shot.
Those of us who remember a certain era know the next line in the song quoted above, "Next stop is Vietnam."
Now, of course it's Afghanistan, and, yes, incredibly still Iraq. Uh ... Osama and Sadam are gone. Time we were, too.
The difference between the 60s and now, though, is that at least the President who was all too willing to send others into a fight of dubious justification, was himself willing to stand-up and fight hard for profoundly just and tough causes here, like civil rights and the war on poverty.
Sadly, zerObama won't even seriously fight the Republican/Teacaner philosophy of anti-middle class economic stupidity. He wants to compromise and get along with the enemy. We can, we must do better.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Why Can't We Give The Job Once Held By Greenspan To Krugman?
Lighten up, already. Just a little end of the workweek levity. After all, Thursday is Friday eve.
http://youtu.be/Doz5w2W-jAY
Update: My unscientific findings show that 9 out of 10 people think this tongue-in-cheek question at least enjoys the benefit of being less consequentially silly than the only one the President seems able to form anymore, to wit: Can't we all just get along?
http://youtu.be/Doz5w2W-jAY
Update: My unscientific findings show that 9 out of 10 people think this tongue-in-cheek question at least enjoys the benefit of being less consequentially silly than the only one the President seems able to form anymore, to wit: Can't we all just get along?
Why Can't A Woman Be More Like A Man?
Ah, I know the answers to Mr. Higgins' funny and famous question in My Fair Lady are obvious. However, poetic license grants permission to ignore the obvious. Just like in the dismal science of economics.
And so we query, why can't economics be more like medicine?
In medicine, outdated and discredited life-sapping and wrong-headed protocols are left behind in the mistake pile, where they belong. I am here thinking of the bleeding with leeches, which hastened the end of Washington's life as he lay on his death bed.
In economics, we never seem to get past the stupidly lethal. I am here thinking of the determination to bleed ourselves back to vitality, by hemorrhaging what is left of the demand factor by choking off government spending. This is the same old conservative death spiral prescription we thought we left behind in the Great Depression.
It would be like me calling to my wife, "Honey, I rolled over my foot with the lawnmower and am bleeding massively," only to hear, "Okay, sweetheart, hold on, I'll get the leeches."
And so we query, why can't economics be more like medicine?
In medicine, outdated and discredited life-sapping and wrong-headed protocols are left behind in the mistake pile, where they belong. I am here thinking of the bleeding with leeches, which hastened the end of Washington's life as he lay on his death bed.
In economics, we never seem to get past the stupidly lethal. I am here thinking of the determination to bleed ourselves back to vitality, by hemorrhaging what is left of the demand factor by choking off government spending. This is the same old conservative death spiral prescription we thought we left behind in the Great Depression.
It would be like me calling to my wife, "Honey, I rolled over my foot with the lawnmower and am bleeding massively," only to hear, "Okay, sweetheart, hold on, I'll get the leeches."
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
The Stock Yards
How do the places where livestock are herded to facilitate their "harvest" differ from the stock market?
The slaughter is never as bloody or disorderly as Wall Street is now.
Kind of makes you wonder, where have all the Bulls gone? And, where did the government debt crisis go?
Same place actually, the realization that there is no basis for bullishness in this terrible economy, and there is no government debt crisis, save for the one invented by terrible politicians and economic policy frauds.
This gruesome mess is the result of catastrophically insufficient demand, and a glut of wasting productive capacity.
It is consumer debt and desperation that has the blood spewing. We know the litany of causes, no need to repeat them all again and again.
But the most important cause does need to be declaimed as loudly and widely and often as possible.
It is the unspeakably tragic and life ruining level of unemployment in this country, which is idling and impoverishing huge and ever increasing swaths of new and veteran members of the labor force.
Recovery will come when, and only when, this problem is taken seriously and solved.
And we know how to solve it. Even Wall Street knows how to solve it. Liquefy all that unproductive capital tied up in stocks, ship it over to the government by investing in treasuries, and pray like hell that policy makers will come to their senses and put all this virtually free money to work restoring economic vitality.
Wall Street knows that the private sector cannot do it now while it is paralyzed by non-existent demand.
Wall Street also knows it is not government debt that is the problem, it is government inaction, at a time when all others are incapable of acting.
The slaughter is never as bloody or disorderly as Wall Street is now.
Kind of makes you wonder, where have all the Bulls gone? And, where did the government debt crisis go?
Same place actually, the realization that there is no basis for bullishness in this terrible economy, and there is no government debt crisis, save for the one invented by terrible politicians and economic policy frauds.
This gruesome mess is the result of catastrophically insufficient demand, and a glut of wasting productive capacity.
It is consumer debt and desperation that has the blood spewing. We know the litany of causes, no need to repeat them all again and again.
But the most important cause does need to be declaimed as loudly and widely and often as possible.
It is the unspeakably tragic and life ruining level of unemployment in this country, which is idling and impoverishing huge and ever increasing swaths of new and veteran members of the labor force.
Recovery will come when, and only when, this problem is taken seriously and solved.
And we know how to solve it. Even Wall Street knows how to solve it. Liquefy all that unproductive capital tied up in stocks, ship it over to the government by investing in treasuries, and pray like hell that policy makers will come to their senses and put all this virtually free money to work restoring economic vitality.
Wall Street knows that the private sector cannot do it now while it is paralyzed by non-existent demand.
Wall Street also knows it is not government debt that is the problem, it is government inaction, at a time when all others are incapable of acting.
Welcome To Wisconsin
Recall elections are a tough go. And they should be.
In the best of circumstances, they carry the odor of sour grapes. Worse, they really can be destructive of democracy, despite the rabid contrary convictions of their advocates.
Face it, there is something to be said for the willingness to accept and live with the results of an election, at least until the next scheduled balloting cycle. I'm thinking here like such is the very essence of democracy, duh.
Most people get this on a visceral level. Hence, these efforts suffer a very high failure rate. And this holds across the board, no matter how compelling the reasons for the effort.
Last night in Wisconsin, it was different. True, only 2 of the 6 recall challenges succeeded. But the results of a third race there are being questioned seriously for improper tinkering by a County Clerk. This person has a rather suspicious knack for "finding" votes favoring her political outlook. We'll see.
Regardless, the 2 victories were extremely impressive by any standard, given that they were achieved by Democrats in highly Republican districts. And they prevailed against tons of right wing, plutocrat money which was disgorged in unprecedented amounts for state level legislative races.
It was people versus money and corruption, first round. All and all, the people held up pretty well. This drama likely will be coming to an election near you. "Welcome to Wisconsin" may become everyone's township motto.
In the best of circumstances, they carry the odor of sour grapes. Worse, they really can be destructive of democracy, despite the rabid contrary convictions of their advocates.
Face it, there is something to be said for the willingness to accept and live with the results of an election, at least until the next scheduled balloting cycle. I'm thinking here like such is the very essence of democracy, duh.
Most people get this on a visceral level. Hence, these efforts suffer a very high failure rate. And this holds across the board, no matter how compelling the reasons for the effort.
Last night in Wisconsin, it was different. True, only 2 of the 6 recall challenges succeeded. But the results of a third race there are being questioned seriously for improper tinkering by a County Clerk. This person has a rather suspicious knack for "finding" votes favoring her political outlook. We'll see.
Regardless, the 2 victories were extremely impressive by any standard, given that they were achieved by Democrats in highly Republican districts. And they prevailed against tons of right wing, plutocrat money which was disgorged in unprecedented amounts for state level legislative races.
It was people versus money and corruption, first round. All and all, the people held up pretty well. This drama likely will be coming to an election near you. "Welcome to Wisconsin" may become everyone's township motto.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Can You Hear Me, Now?
Verizon is a very strong company. It earned 19 billion dollars in profit during the last four years. That's right, 19 billion dollars in profit during the last four years of world-wide financial collapse. Pretty damn good, but hardly unique. The fact is that the corporate class as a whole has been raking in profits at record levels during this period of pain and suffering for most ordinary Americans.
And what have they done with all this money? Well, not much really, certainly not much in the way of investment and growth that would add employees and help the economy recover. No, they're just sitting on the money.
One thing Verizon is doing a little differently, though, is they are more greedily than most trying to increase their huge profits by stealing from their own employees. Verizon is demanding cuts in pension and health care benefits which would cost the average employee 5,000 dollars a year. This would give Verizon another 1 billion dollars in profit, which they would simply sit on while the country's economy worsens and withers.
This has precipitated a break-down in contract negotiations covering 45,000 IBEW and CWA union workers. This is just what a faltering and sagging recovery doesn't need, another mass of hard working folks suddenly not earning a paycheck. This is a message Verizon apparently hasn't gotten.
Maybe they need to hear it from their customers.
And what have they done with all this money? Well, not much really, certainly not much in the way of investment and growth that would add employees and help the economy recover. No, they're just sitting on the money.
One thing Verizon is doing a little differently, though, is they are more greedily than most trying to increase their huge profits by stealing from their own employees. Verizon is demanding cuts in pension and health care benefits which would cost the average employee 5,000 dollars a year. This would give Verizon another 1 billion dollars in profit, which they would simply sit on while the country's economy worsens and withers.
This has precipitated a break-down in contract negotiations covering 45,000 IBEW and CWA union workers. This is just what a faltering and sagging recovery doesn't need, another mass of hard working folks suddenly not earning a paycheck. This is a message Verizon apparently hasn't gotten.
Maybe they need to hear it from their customers.
Call The Moving Van
Maybe Tom Friedman should move. He seemingly would be happier, and we, well, we really just wouldn't give a damn.
I do want to be clear, though. I wouldn't care if he left or if he stayed; so don't hear this an echo of the old and stupid "love it or leave it" crowd. No, this is simply a compassionate outreach to a very confused individual, who really does need some guidance.
I do not believe that straight-jacket consistency in any matter is a virtue; flexibility is an invaluable survival skill. However, the consistent inconsistency of Friedman's thinking, with which he turns his column into a continuous muddle, surely must be seen as a vice. How he survives in his line of work is almost as hard to understand as is his own confusion.
He today has staked out positions on at least 3 issues completely at odds with former arguments. He now wants "high IQ" immigration, blames over-indebted homeowners for buying homes they just couldn't afford, and considers construction and retail jobs as somewhat beneath us.
But this guy has in the recent past favored the opposite position on each one of these points. He loved Greenspan's and Bush's push to push people into exotic and dangerous mortgages they couldn't afford. He welcomed hard-working, poorly educated common folk immigration from Mexico, because this willing and cheap labor would make our economy more competitive. And he stumped for the mass creation of low wage, entry level jobs which require little or no training to fill.
He also admires the way China, India, and Eastern Europe run an economy better than the way we do. And, oh yes, he says he believes the world is flat.
Perfect, maybe he can just rent a moving van, and drive to the places for which he has such high regard.
I do want to be clear, though. I wouldn't care if he left or if he stayed; so don't hear this an echo of the old and stupid "love it or leave it" crowd. No, this is simply a compassionate outreach to a very confused individual, who really does need some guidance.
I do not believe that straight-jacket consistency in any matter is a virtue; flexibility is an invaluable survival skill. However, the consistent inconsistency of Friedman's thinking, with which he turns his column into a continuous muddle, surely must be seen as a vice. How he survives in his line of work is almost as hard to understand as is his own confusion.
He today has staked out positions on at least 3 issues completely at odds with former arguments. He now wants "high IQ" immigration, blames over-indebted homeowners for buying homes they just couldn't afford, and considers construction and retail jobs as somewhat beneath us.
But this guy has in the recent past favored the opposite position on each one of these points. He loved Greenspan's and Bush's push to push people into exotic and dangerous mortgages they couldn't afford. He welcomed hard-working, poorly educated common folk immigration from Mexico, because this willing and cheap labor would make our economy more competitive. And he stumped for the mass creation of low wage, entry level jobs which require little or no training to fill.
He also admires the way China, India, and Eastern Europe run an economy better than the way we do. And, oh yes, he says he believes the world is flat.
Perfect, maybe he can just rent a moving van, and drive to the places for which he has such high regard.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Applause! (On Cue, Please)
Two quick reasons TV studio audiences are cued by applause signs:
- Timothy Geithner. The Treasury Secretary informed President Obama that he has reconsidered his intention to leave his post, and will stay on through 2012. APPLAUSE !!!!??? No, I don't think we should clap. This a guy who was wrong about the size and shape of the stimulus, wrong about whether to bail-out or straighten-out the banking industry during the financial collapse, and tried like hell to reach a deal to cut Social Security and Medicare during the so-called "Grand Bargain" negotiations. The administration is reportedly relieved because they worried it might be difficult to get this Congress to approve a replacement. Well, sometimes you really can do worse than no one. Geithner proves it every day.
- The Tea Party (Teacaners). Yesterday, something called The Tea Party Express rolled into a rally in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. The rally was part of the desperate campaign to save the six union hating Republican State Senators who are going to be voted out of office Tuesday, in the recall election. Well, one of the speakers claimed the media had taken to crediting the Tea Party with causing the S&P downgrade of the US credit rating. Guess what? These knuckleheads cheered! They really need a sign to cue them. Just because something hurts, it doesn't mean it's getting better, guys.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Tiger Roars at ALEC Summit and Protest - New Orleans
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a very dangerous sham organization.
It claims to be a public policy body supported by public officials (i.e. state legislators). In reality it is only 1% funded by the "dues" these benighted, right wing, local yokel pols kick in. The 99% balance of its operating expenses is supplied by the likes of the well known, fascistic Koch Kook brothers, and other anti-American middle class and poor people plutocrats.
After a decade or more of operating far below the radar screen of the corporate owned mainstream media, it has managed to build a membership of over a thousand state legislators around the country. This, courtesy of at least some 370 million dollars of funding, which can be accounted for; surely twice that much or more has greased this oily machine.
Here are just some of ALEC's public policy credits:
It claims to be a public policy body supported by public officials (i.e. state legislators). In reality it is only 1% funded by the "dues" these benighted, right wing, local yokel pols kick in. The 99% balance of its operating expenses is supplied by the likes of the well known, fascistic
After a decade or more of operating far below the radar screen of the corporate owned mainstream media, it has managed to build a membership of over a thousand state legislators around the country. This, courtesy of at least some 370 million dollars of funding, which can be accounted for; surely twice that much or more has greased this oily machine.
Here are just some of ALEC's public policy credits:
- The Wisconsin public employees anti-union debacle, which lead to the recall effort aimed at 8 legislators, and is scheduled for a vote this coming Tuesday, August 9th. Please see video of Tiger Hammond and others at: http://youtu.be/Uc5RUOu52hk.
- Advancing Banking legislation to require seniors to lose their homes via reverse mortgages, in order to receive Medicaid.
- Protecting Drug Company profits by banning states from allowing the importation of identical, safe, and far cheaper drugs from other countries like Canada.
- Protecting Oil Company profits from any renewable energy legislative actions.
- Protecting High Tech service providers by banning Municipal Broadband Service.
- Protecting companies from accountablity for killer asbestos exposure disease and disability.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Mecurochrome
Making good on their long-standing threat, S&P yesterday downgraded US debt, for the first time in history. Somehow they must have concluded from the Teacaner (Tea Party/Republican) strategy that extortion works.
More amazingly, they admitted to having made a 2 trillion dollar arithmetic mistake in their own calculations. And that, by far, is not the most farcical aspect of this attempted shake-down.
S&P and other grossly wrong prognosticators have been screaming for years that the Federal debt would make interest rates and inflation explode. No such thing has happened; the opposite has occurred. S&P, Moody's, and other credit ratings agencies' shortcomings, errors, and biases have been exposed by the facts. Now, they are pulling out all the stops in a desperate maneuver to pull their pants back up, by making interest rates go up.
Anyone who can spell economics knows that the premium paid on debt is in direct relationship to risk. Banks primarily use credit scores to determine risk. That is why your credit score counts when you go to a bank to make a mortgage. A score of 670 might fetch a loan at 6.5%, while a score of 790 gets money at 4.3%.
But when it comes to premium pricing of government debt, investors world-wide look at a world of factors other than the dubious pronouncements of ratings agencies, and other scaremongers. They know that S&P, Moody's, and others have a dismal track record in assessing the risk of public debt. They have a profound and demonstrable private vs public debt bias in favor of the private.
They never take into account the permanent nature of public entities, as contrasted to private companies. Consequently, they routinely rate the likes of Enron, Lehman, Borders Books, you name it - maybe even Studebaker, as solid and sound investment risks, while disdaining and downgrading Michigan's state or Japan's national credit worthiness.
Problem is that private companies have a way of going poof and disappearing, leaving creditors holding nothing but thin air and bad promises. Public entities tend to stick around in perpetuity and make good their debts, together with the promised rate of return. Last reports have it that Michigan is still with us, while Studebaker is nowhere to be found.
This dynamic explains why the interest on Japanese national debt fell, and has stayed down and low, following on a brief spike from the S&P and Moody's downgrade, more than a decade ago. So much for the credit we should grant advice from these Bozos.
Likewise, the interest rate paid on US Treasury bonds has been low and dropping throughout this ginned-up "crisis" of debt driven catastrophe.
The current interest rate on 30 year Treasuries is 1.25%. And the 10 year inflation protected Treasuries pay a scant .38%. That's right, only about one-third of one percent for the entire 10 years, while assessing negative interest (in other words, taking some of the principle of the investors money) for the first 5 to 7 years.
This is essentially free money. For the U.S. government not to take advantage of this "depression era" free money climate to stimulate the economy, rebuilding ancient, decrepit and failing infrastructure systems, or making progress on developing anti-climate change energy technologies, is simply immoral.
What should we do, wait until some very distant future date, when interest rates really may go up to painful levels, before we borrow to fix all these systems and do all these things which will not fix or do themselves? How needlessly and mindlessly painful that would be.
But there are those who insist that in order to feel better, we first have to inflict more pain.
It reminds me of Mercurochrome. Mom used to say that it hurt, and it really did, because it was killing off the bad germs. She said it would make the bo-bo heal and get better. Turns out, the germ killing alcohol in it was really only there to carry the toxic mercury laden active ingredients in the solution. It has since been banned in the United States. Sorry, Mom. I know you meant well, but your treatment was worse than the injury.
As for the pronouncements and prescriptions of S&P, Moody's, et al, I cannot give them such a pass. They are consciously out to serve the interests of their plutocrat clients. They make the Mafia look like the Girl Scouts. And they're not selling cookies, they're selling advice more toxic than mercury poisoning.
The corporate class is awash, nay, drowning in money. Hence, we see the truly perverse move by NY Mellon Bank to start charging fees to their largest depositors, just to take the cash off their hands, while keeping it safe and accounted for. They have no place to put this money to earn a return sufficient to offset the cost of simply baby sitting it. They really, really want to see the interest rate on US debt spike, so that they can lay-off this burdensome money.
They need a place to put the money which will defray the handling costs. It's like the bookmakers of years gone by who would lay-off bad bets at the racetrack, so as not to risk losing money of their own. The only private sector alternative would be to have businesses invest the money to create new value, hire people, and stimulate consumer confidence and demand.
That is what the economy desperately needs. But that absolutely will not happen because that would be too much like real work, and involve some risk. And that is why the government, and only the government, can step in now to get us on the road to recovery. Anything else is mindless, counterproductive pain.
More amazingly, they admitted to having made a 2 trillion dollar arithmetic mistake in their own calculations. And that, by far, is not the most farcical aspect of this attempted shake-down.
S&P and other grossly wrong prognosticators have been screaming for years that the Federal debt would make interest rates and inflation explode. No such thing has happened; the opposite has occurred. S&P, Moody's, and other credit ratings agencies' shortcomings, errors, and biases have been exposed by the facts. Now, they are pulling out all the stops in a desperate maneuver to pull their pants back up, by making interest rates go up.
Anyone who can spell economics knows that the premium paid on debt is in direct relationship to risk. Banks primarily use credit scores to determine risk. That is why your credit score counts when you go to a bank to make a mortgage. A score of 670 might fetch a loan at 6.5%, while a score of 790 gets money at 4.3%.
But when it comes to premium pricing of government debt, investors world-wide look at a world of factors other than the dubious pronouncements of ratings agencies, and other scaremongers. They know that S&P, Moody's, and others have a dismal track record in assessing the risk of public debt. They have a profound and demonstrable private vs public debt bias in favor of the private.
They never take into account the permanent nature of public entities, as contrasted to private companies. Consequently, they routinely rate the likes of Enron, Lehman, Borders Books, you name it - maybe even Studebaker, as solid and sound investment risks, while disdaining and downgrading Michigan's state or Japan's national credit worthiness.
Problem is that private companies have a way of going poof and disappearing, leaving creditors holding nothing but thin air and bad promises. Public entities tend to stick around in perpetuity and make good their debts, together with the promised rate of return. Last reports have it that Michigan is still with us, while Studebaker is nowhere to be found.
This dynamic explains why the interest on Japanese national debt fell, and has stayed down and low, following on a brief spike from the S&P and Moody's downgrade, more than a decade ago. So much for the credit we should grant advice from these Bozos.
Likewise, the interest rate paid on US Treasury bonds has been low and dropping throughout this ginned-up "crisis" of debt driven catastrophe.
The current interest rate on 30 year Treasuries is 1.25%. And the 10 year inflation protected Treasuries pay a scant .38%. That's right, only about one-third of one percent for the entire 10 years, while assessing negative interest (in other words, taking some of the principle of the investors money) for the first 5 to 7 years.
This is essentially free money. For the U.S. government not to take advantage of this "depression era" free money climate to stimulate the economy, rebuilding ancient, decrepit and failing infrastructure systems, or making progress on developing anti-climate change energy technologies, is simply immoral.
What should we do, wait until some very distant future date, when interest rates really may go up to painful levels, before we borrow to fix all these systems and do all these things which will not fix or do themselves? How needlessly and mindlessly painful that would be.
But there are those who insist that in order to feel better, we first have to inflict more pain.
It reminds me of Mercurochrome. Mom used to say that it hurt, and it really did, because it was killing off the bad germs. She said it would make the bo-bo heal and get better. Turns out, the germ killing alcohol in it was really only there to carry the toxic mercury laden active ingredients in the solution. It has since been banned in the United States. Sorry, Mom. I know you meant well, but your treatment was worse than the injury.
As for the pronouncements and prescriptions of S&P, Moody's, et al, I cannot give them such a pass. They are consciously out to serve the interests of their plutocrat clients. They make the Mafia look like the Girl Scouts. And they're not selling cookies, they're selling advice more toxic than mercury poisoning.
The corporate class is awash, nay, drowning in money. Hence, we see the truly perverse move by NY Mellon Bank to start charging fees to their largest depositors, just to take the cash off their hands, while keeping it safe and accounted for. They have no place to put this money to earn a return sufficient to offset the cost of simply baby sitting it. They really, really want to see the interest rate on US debt spike, so that they can lay-off this burdensome money.
They need a place to put the money which will defray the handling costs. It's like the bookmakers of years gone by who would lay-off bad bets at the racetrack, so as not to risk losing money of their own. The only private sector alternative would be to have businesses invest the money to create new value, hire people, and stimulate consumer confidence and demand.
That is what the economy desperately needs. But that absolutely will not happen because that would be too much like real work, and involve some risk. And that is why the government, and only the government, can step in now to get us on the road to recovery. Anything else is mindless, counterproductive pain.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Thanks For Nothing *
Okay, so first, the asterisk. Well, it's like Fats sang so happily at the end of the workweek, "And Friday I get my pay." Hence, those of us still fortunate enough to be working and getting paid, in this 9.2 % and climbing rate of unemployment economy, could hardly fail to feel thankful.
Craning an ear to the economic drumbeat of the nation and world at large, however, one hears little more than discordant noise. And, ominously, the sickening sound of rising right wing street thuggery and violence. All of this, all of it, is the direct result of the greed and stupidity of the right.
In Europe where the austerity prescription of the right wing philosophy has been most severely imposed so far, street beatings of immigrants and calls for fascist style political solutions are becoming the order of the day.
Here, the ignorant rantings and calls for more disastrous economic pain for the middle class and poor, by crazy, clueless, zealots like Rush Limbaugh are getting ever expanding audience.
This, even though Nobel laureates like economist and NY Times columnist Paul Krugman, have been diligently toiling in the vineyards of enlightened intellectual discourse, reminding us daily that the way out of this mess was revealed in the Great Depression, not on the almost always wrong editorial page of the WSJ.
Even the likes of David Frum, a most decidedly committed conservative functionary of the Bush administration, and regular public commentator, has recently averred in light of all the evidence, maybe his "enemies" have been right all along.
But the wrong marches on. So, unlike the meaning of Black Friday following Thanksgiving, when retail businesses do so well and get their books out of the red, this Friday is feeling mighty black, but not the same way.
So, to those idiots of the right who want the government to do nothing but dry up and blow away, instead of step in and move the national economy forward again, thanks for nothing.
UPDATE: The July unemployment rate came in at a microscopically improved 9.1%. Hooray? Keep the champagne corked.
Craning an ear to the economic drumbeat of the nation and world at large, however, one hears little more than discordant noise. And, ominously, the sickening sound of rising right wing street thuggery and violence. All of this, all of it, is the direct result of the greed and stupidity of the right.
In Europe where the austerity prescription of the right wing philosophy has been most severely imposed so far, street beatings of immigrants and calls for fascist style political solutions are becoming the order of the day.
Here, the ignorant rantings and calls for more disastrous economic pain for the middle class and poor, by crazy, clueless, zealots like Rush Limbaugh are getting ever expanding audience.
This, even though Nobel laureates like economist and NY Times columnist Paul Krugman, have been diligently toiling in the vineyards of enlightened intellectual discourse, reminding us daily that the way out of this mess was revealed in the Great Depression, not on the almost always wrong editorial page of the WSJ.
Even the likes of David Frum, a most decidedly committed conservative functionary of the Bush administration, and regular public commentator, has recently averred in light of all the evidence, maybe his "enemies" have been right all along.
But the wrong marches on. So, unlike the meaning of Black Friday following Thanksgiving, when retail businesses do so well and get their books out of the red, this Friday is feeling mighty black, but not the same way.
So, to those idiots of the right who want the government to do nothing but dry up and blow away, instead of step in and move the national economy forward again, thanks for nothing.
UPDATE: The July unemployment rate came in at a microscopically improved 9.1%. Hooray? Keep the champagne corked.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
This Is Politics
Four days into it, Fats was still wailing the workman blues, "Because Thursday's a hard working day ..."
Well, like Fats, I've got the blues. I've got the blues, alright, the zerObama blues. Been wailing about it all week, and not about to stop.
We surely need someone to help us give him the blues right back. I'm working hard to figure out who. Too bad Kennedy isn't around to give him his Carter treatment. Although dead Irishmen used to remain chronic voters in New Orleans, even here they usually didn't stand for election.
In an earlier post I made a call for Hillary. But I know she could not credibly run this time, having surrendered her New York base and Senate seat to work for zerObama. She was angling to run next time. It seemed like a plausible course.
But just think, if she had stayed in the Senate she might now be a hero instead of a sub-zerO. She could have opposed his foolish debt ceiling cave in. She might even have saved us from this built-in disaster of guaranteed additional years of depression economics, with the likely crippling or worse of Social Security and Medicare.
She had a chance to be the first ever candidate to successfully challenge a sitting president of their own party, and then go on to win the general election. And, of course, she would have been the first she president.
Now, it is all gone. Now, it would be crass and callous, an act of existential betrayal. Now, it couldn't possibly succeed.
Wait a minute, this is politics. HILLARY 2012.
Well, like Fats, I've got the blues. I've got the blues, alright, the zerObama blues. Been wailing about it all week, and not about to stop.
We surely need someone to help us give him the blues right back. I'm working hard to figure out who. Too bad Kennedy isn't around to give him his Carter treatment. Although dead Irishmen used to remain chronic voters in New Orleans, even here they usually didn't stand for election.
In an earlier post I made a call for Hillary. But I know she could not credibly run this time, having surrendered her New York base and Senate seat to work for zerObama. She was angling to run next time. It seemed like a plausible course.
But just think, if she had stayed in the Senate she might now be a hero instead of a sub-zerO. She could have opposed his foolish debt ceiling cave in. She might even have saved us from this built-in disaster of guaranteed additional years of depression economics, with the likely crippling or worse of Social Security and Medicare.
She had a chance to be the first ever candidate to successfully challenge a sitting president of their own party, and then go on to win the general election. And, of course, she would have been the first she president.
Now, it is all gone. Now, it would be crass and callous, an act of existential betrayal. Now, it couldn't possibly succeed.
Wait a minute, this is politics. HILLARY 2012.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Hop On The Bus, Gus ... Get Off The Bus, Us
We don't need to discuss much.
Here is the Obama road map and travel itinerary already in the record:
He's coming by to ask for a new lease on the White House. Let's have him drop off the key, and set ourselves free.
Here is the Obama road map and travel itinerary already in the record:
- He screwed us on health care reform. Messed it up royally, far beyond any hope of revival for at least another decade or two. This unforgivably happened at a time when the country was crying out for a genuine national health care approach, one that would have brought us in line with and up to the moral standards of the rest of the developed world.
- He squandered the opportunity to provide a substantial stimulus. The country cried out for it in response to the devastating financial collapse. He listened to carping Republicans, who insisted on a tepid, insufficient package hobbled by inefficient tax cuts, instead of direct spending. His catastrophic failure has ushered in a modern version of depression economics with no end in sight, and so lethally poisoned the well of public opinion on the subject of legitimate macroeconomics that there really is no road out of this mess anywhere on the political grid. And it is all, repeat all, his fault.
- He agreed to ridiculous GOP budget demands. He surrendered on keeping the outrageous, unfair, and deficit-exploding Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.
- He was panicked by the mid-term election Republican take-over of Congress. Worse, he was positively freaked by the Teacaner take-over of the Republicans. He doubled down on depression era economics by caving in to draconian cuts, at a time when vastly increased stimulus spending was needed, and easy to do because of historically low, low, low, interest rates.
He's coming by to ask for a new lease on the White House. Let's have him drop off the key, and set ourselves free.
Streaking
On hump day, I'm sure with unintended irony, Mr. Antoine "Fats" Domino sang out, "Then comes Wednesday, I'm beat to my socks. My girl calls, got to tell her that I'm out."
Hmph, even though the Republican/Teacan double team had beaten the socks off of him, the next day zerObama was out taking a barefoot victory lap. Worse, he and the other Democrat losers were trash-talking about a rematch, scheduled for the end of the year. That's when the big number, the 1.5 trillion in cuts will be decided upon. I say cuts because you and I both know the enemy is not about to give in on revenues, not now, maybe not ever, thanks to the scrub squad we have fielded against them.
And, in addition to having a much tougher team than we do, the Republican/Teacans have a far smarter game plan. They have set up their red zone strategy perfectly. When the big number comes due, the Social Security tax break and extended unemployment benefits are set to expire.
Now, calling the action from the booth, I'd say you can look for the enemy to engage in classic misdirection by happily agreeing to extend the Social Security tax break, because it both comports with their overall position on taxes and clearly weakens the fiscal strength of a program they hate, and to fight like hell to push the ball over the line on ending extended unemployment benefits as a trade-off, so as to realize "deficit reduction." Score another touchdown for the enemy.
If they beat him out of much more of his clothes, I really don't want to see zerObama run another victory lap.
Hmph, even though the Republican/Teacan double team had beaten the socks off of him, the next day zerObama was out taking a barefoot victory lap. Worse, he and the other Democrat losers were trash-talking about a rematch, scheduled for the end of the year. That's when the big number, the 1.5 trillion in cuts will be decided upon. I say cuts because you and I both know the enemy is not about to give in on revenues, not now, maybe not ever, thanks to the scrub squad we have fielded against them.
And, in addition to having a much tougher team than we do, the Republican/Teacans have a far smarter game plan. They have set up their red zone strategy perfectly. When the big number comes due, the Social Security tax break and extended unemployment benefits are set to expire.
Now, calling the action from the booth, I'd say you can look for the enemy to engage in classic misdirection by happily agreeing to extend the Social Security tax break, because it both comports with their overall position on taxes and clearly weakens the fiscal strength of a program they hate, and to fight like hell to push the ball over the line on ending extended unemployment benefits as a trade-off, so as to realize "deficit reduction." Score another touchdown for the enemy.
If they beat him out of much more of his clothes, I really don't want to see zerObama run another victory lap.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
The Principal Hoax
Fats went on ... "Then comes Tuesday. Oh, hard Tuesday. Got no time. Got no time to play." So, with no time to play, let's get right to the hard facts.
One clear fact, long ago stated, is that politics is just another form of warfare. This reflects the underlying truth that society is comprised of competing interests. Opposing interests are expected to be represented by opposing political sides, not just mutual partners in governing. Mature citizens and politicians understand this, so even though it is too late by far to salvage anything useful from it, the President needs to grow-up.
His opposite numbers are fully grown. They realize that the only legitimate concern in war is to make sure your side wins. As the devilish details come out, their victory, and the means of achieving it, become clearer.
We read, for instance, this morning in The Times-Picayune that the Social Security tax break for working people will indeed expire by years end. The Republicans, of course, failed to oppose this, as they so vociferously did the expiration of tax breaks for the wealthy and the plutocrats.
Whoa! What happened to their principled opposition to all tax increases? The answer is that in governing, as the Republicans full well know, the principal hoax is to feign fealty to immutable principles.
One clear fact, long ago stated, is that politics is just another form of warfare. This reflects the underlying truth that society is comprised of competing interests. Opposing interests are expected to be represented by opposing political sides, not just mutual partners in governing. Mature citizens and politicians understand this, so even though it is too late by far to salvage anything useful from it, the President needs to grow-up.
His opposite numbers are fully grown. They realize that the only legitimate concern in war is to make sure your side wins. As the devilish details come out, their victory, and the means of achieving it, become clearer.
We read, for instance, this morning in The Times-Picayune that the Social Security tax break for working people will indeed expire by years end. The Republicans, of course, failed to oppose this, as they so vociferously did the expiration of tax breaks for the wealthy and the plutocrats.
Whoa! What happened to their principled opposition to all tax increases? The answer is that in governing, as the Republicans full well know, the principal hoax is to feign fealty to immutable principles.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Nostalgia
No heavy lifting tonight, promise. Just a nod in the direction of the notion that there are some things you don't appreciate until they go away.
Hard to believe, but I'm really starting to miss the likes of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann filling every minute of goofy national news coverage. Amazingly, they have all but disappeared from the tube during this marathon debt ceiling national hostage taking.
Watching John Boehner and Mitch McConnell skin Obama and the Democrats alive 24/7 for the last month or so has been a bit wearing by comparison.
Its been like the difference between laughing while Wile E. Coyote and Elmer Fudd futilely stalk their prey, and shaking in horror as Perry Smith and Dick Hickock murder the Clutters "In Cold Blood."
Hard to believe, but I'm really starting to miss the likes of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann filling every minute of goofy national news coverage. Amazingly, they have all but disappeared from the tube during this marathon debt ceiling national hostage taking.
Watching John Boehner and Mitch McConnell skin Obama and the Democrats alive 24/7 for the last month or so has been a bit wearing by comparison.
Its been like the difference between laughing while Wile E. Coyote and Elmer Fudd futilely stalk their prey, and shaking in horror as Perry Smith and Dick Hickock murder the Clutters "In Cold Blood."
Blue Monday
Like Fats so memorably sang, "I hate blue Monday. Got to work like a slave all day."
But at least here in New Orleans we continue to have work, unlike so staggeringly many of our fellow unemployed citizens around the country. And we have this work almost exclusively as a result of the massive government spending to rebuild New Orleans, which has continued unabated six years since hurricane Katrina. Never thought I would say this during the time of the crisis, when they did nothing but bumble and stumble, but thank God for FEMA.
Now, thanks to the new zerObama deal with the devils, funding for essential services like FEMA will also be on the chopping block. Pray for sunny weather, y'all. We sure as hell will need it.
But at least here in New Orleans we continue to have work, unlike so staggeringly many of our fellow unemployed citizens around the country. And we have this work almost exclusively as a result of the massive government spending to rebuild New Orleans, which has continued unabated six years since hurricane Katrina. Never thought I would say this during the time of the crisis, when they did nothing but bumble and stumble, but thank God for FEMA.
Now, thanks to the new zerObama deal with the devils, funding for essential services like FEMA will also be on the chopping block. Pray for sunny weather, y'all. We sure as hell will need it.
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