Calling BS on The Republicans This Time

I saw a fascinating documentary last night.  It is Robert Reich's Inequality for All.  He served in various administrations of both parties for all of his career but he can tell you about that. 

I knew about many of the facts and economic trends in the documentary beforehand but what surprised me was that it started much earlier.  The economic trend of minimizing/eliminating the middle class goes back to at least 1970.  In other words, my entire working life has been spent as part of a middle class that has now shrunk almost to the point of invisibility.

He punches holes in one of the biggest Republican lies in current vogue - the 'impairment of the job creators' through asking them to ... well actually pay their current taxes for one thing, or pay a rate that is commensurate with the huge wealth increases they are reaping without contributing anything to the economy...and certainly not jobs.

Reich makes a compelling point that the middle class represents the true 'job creators'. After all, I don't think a CEO of a large corporation making, oh, $90 million per year is going to go out January 1st and say "I am going to create some jobs this year so I can make less money next year." 

No, for the large majority of American businesses, demand = job creation, and the middle class is overwhelmingly responsible for demand in this country and economy.  Of course, if the middle class ceases to exist or suffers huge losses in real income as they have since 1970....there is no demand, and no job creation.  Sound like any economies you know of?

This is a well done, very factual documentary and is done without the usual preachiness of someone on a pulpit.  One gets the sense that Reich is done with Washington politics and wants to very much leave it in his rear view mirror, but because he understands what is going on, he cares about what is going on.

I don't give a fig about voter ID to vote in US elections, but I really think it should be a requirement for every American voter to sit down and watch this documentary and understand it before casting another misguided vote based on the most charismatic candidate, the richest, or heaven forbid based on political party membership!

Update: That whooshing sound you heard was the Canadian middle class zooming by the US, eh?

Time to Call BS on Congress...Again

I long ago gave up on anything said by anyone who is a member of a political party, much less a member of Congress.  But it turns out that Congress in particular has been lying to us with greater vigor than normal about taxes (and so have several "anti-tax" groups).  

There is collective rotten-egg-on-the-face today of every member of Congress who has ever (falsely) wailed about the "tax burden" on the poor US.   It just isn't so folks...the only place we have to go is to join a couple of sterling, role model countries...Chile and Mexico. 

Besides, everyone knows, the rich corporations that support your campaigns don't pay taxes anyway !

This is What Quality Journalism Is

In the world of young tight-and-short-skirted, blond bimbos passing themselves off as "experts", much less journalists, and the plethora of "gossip news" sites which are free to indulge in fiction at any time, it is nice to know that there are at least a few bastions of true journalistic integrity left.

One that I rely on for hard-hitting Watergate-era style investigations backed up by impeccable research and facts is the Center for Public Integrity which was recently awarded the prestigious Polk Award for their work to prove that most of the culprits in the recent (and ongoing) financial crisis triggered by the brain dead Bush administration got off unscathed and are ready to reenter the fray. Their site is linked on the list of trusted resources at the right.

 

Income Inequality - Part I

You will be hearing a lot about this as the 2016 campaign prematurely warms up, and President Obama is expected to make it a central theme of his upcoming State of the Union drone (err. I mean speech...yawn).

Unfortunately most of the noise is going to come from brainless politicians who have no relationship with rational thinking or logic.  Fortunately, there are some bright people who are digging into it in a methodical and fact based way:



I will be trying to point out the intelligent resources for thinkers amid all of the political chaff as we move on.  Look for the Economic Inequality tag.