demockracy's Comments (28)

“Even if we set aside the 9/11 attack, lets not forget this article, either:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/03/iraq-101-iraq-effect-war-iraq-and-its-impact-war-terrorism-pg-1

Title: "The Iraq Effect: The War Has Increased Terrorism Sevenfold Worldwide ."

Pretty much speaks for itself.”

“Plenty of skeptics..­. Yet it only took a 3% tax hike on the highest brackets to balance the budget for Clinton... Gee! is that ever suggestive.

It was Reagan who lowered the top progressive rates from somewhere near 70% to somewhere near 30%. This was done to satisfy "Supply Side" economics, but Reagan's own budget director, David Stockman, confessed that that theory was just an excuse (a "Trojan horse") to lower the top rates.

Meanwhile Reagan signed eight tax increases, and between him and Bush 41 quadrupled the payroll taxes. The result? In the last 30 years, the bottom 90% of real incomes have been in decline while those at the 99.99th percentile have received (at least) a 497% raise. Read Krugman's column about that here: http://select.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/opinion/27krugman.html

Big tax hikes on the very wealthy would mean no more $4,000 shower curtains and $10,000 waste baskets, but would revive the economy. See http://www.alternet.org/workplace/106979”

“See www.democracynow.org for the real story (as usual). This Olympic bid is a terrific way to saddle a poor community with a) police brutality, b) gentrification and relocation of the poor, c) enormous debt (Greece is just now repaying its debt). The Olympics historically does all three. It *never* pays its own way.

In Beijing, people were imprisoned for circulating petitions that said "Don't evict us from our house for the Olympics." Atlanta apparently built a new jail for their Olympics.

This is *just* an opportunity for yet another over-budget spectacle whose funding comes at the expense of those least able to afford it.

You can bet Chicago will tell its schools and public health officials that there's not enough money to grant their requests, but *presto!* there's lots of moolah to build synchronized swimming pools and gymnastics stadiums that will be useless after the Olympics is over.

You could entitle this story "Why was George W. Bush elected?" and it wouldn't be that far off. Style triumphs over substance again.”

“Don't forget: "Not W"”

“First of all, the AMA limits medical school enrollments in the U.S. (and maintains the bizarre fiction that abused, sleep-deprived doctors provide the best care), so the shortage increases physician incomes in the U.S.

France pays its docs roughly half what ours get, and has far better health care (WHO rank for health care outomes: France = #1, the U.S. = #37).”

“This is yet another neocon meme. The EU's cancer rates and death from cancer are lower than the U.S. Where the U.S. excels is in the SWAT team intervention after you've *got* the cancer. In other words, prevention is much better in single-payer systems.

Part of that is related to the way even household chemicals in Europe are "guilty until proven innocent," while the U.S. provides the guinea pigs for lots of substances banned in Europe.

The other part is the way we subsidize the very worst food. Calories in the twinkie are cheaper than calories in carrots. Antibiotic-abusing feedlot beef and high fructose corn syrup are as cheap as they are because of the bizarre agricultural subsidies in the U.S.”

“The Newsbusters citation demonstrates that Fox has promoted a hoax that supports their agenda, not breaking news about science.

Here's from mediamatters.org: "According to his employee profile, Carlin is a Senior Operations Research Analyst at EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology.

Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, wrote in a June 26 RealClimate.org post that in reading the internal EPA document that Carlin co-authored, "[o]ne can see a number of basic flaws [in its main points]; the complete lack of appreciation of the importance of natural variability on short time scales, the common but erroneous belief that any attribution of past climate change to solar or other forcing means that CO2 has no radiative effect, and a hopeless lack of familiarity of the basic science of detection and attributio­n.""”

“Fox is the only place asking tough questions? Nope, that's not even close to accurate. Here's the place that asks the real questions: http://www.democracynow.org”

“The U.S. "privatized" system costs roughly double most single-payer systems. The most expensive (Germany's) costs 60% of ours. The word "privatized" is in quotes because 40% of U.S. medical costs are government paid.

The World Health Organization compared health care outcomes, and found the U.S. ranks 37th in the world (this measure includes life expectancy, vaccination rates, infant mortality, etc.). One editorial said that it's as though the U.S. has the health care of Costa Rica, but pays six times more for the privilege.

Europeans and Canadians are completely uninterested in pursuing such a broken, expensive system.

There is no clearer evidence, IMHO, that the U.S. government is primarily interested in enriching certain elites, rather than public service, than a health care system like the current one.

Incidentally, the U.S. single-payer medicare-for-all, as proposed by Harry Truman, was defeated when the Dixiecrats objected such a proposal would racially integrate Southern hospitals.

Who says racism only hurts its victims?”

“You didn't mention the exceptional actions of the Fed to prop up markets. That's right, Bernanke has been buying equities with Fed money. "Unprecedented" hardly describes it.

The current catastrophe is exemplary of what's at the very foundation of the current economy. An illustration: if you'd invested one penny at Jesus' birth, at 5% compound interest, you would currently be owed two spheres of gold, each the size of planet earth. What's the most powerful force on earth? ... they asked Einstein. His answer: "Compound interest"

Why did ancient cultures have "Jubilee years" when all debt was forgiven? Because they'd experience economy crashes otherwise.

See http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse for *much* more of this.

This economy defines the word "unsustain­able."”

“See http://www.alternet.org/workplace/106979/why_the_economy_grows_like_crazy_amid_high_taxes/?page=entire

Also: "A new research paper by Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon of Northwestern University, 'Where Did the Productivity Growth Go?,' gives the details. Between 1972 and 2001 the wage and salary income of Americans at the 90th percentile of the income distribution rose only 34 percent, or about 1 percent per year. So being in the top 10 percent of the income distribution, like being a college graduate, wasn't a ticket to big income gains.

But income at the 99th percentile rose 87 percent; income at the 99.9th percentile rose 181 percent; and income at the 99.99th percentile rose 497 percent. No, that's not a misprint."

from http://select.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/opinion/27krugman.html?pagewanted=print”

“Yeah! That's right, you *must* be a chicken to be able to smell a rotten egg!

Krugman's criticism can't be legit, he hasn't got that crucial insiders point of view!

And the people who criticized the Iraq War... 99% weren't soldiers! Damn them!”

“http://www.alternet.org/workplace/106979”

“See this: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/106979

"Why the Economy Grows Like Crazy Amid High Taxes"

Then read Paul Krugman's "Peddling Prosperity"

The reason we don't "tell it like it is" is that you stopped listening so long ago.”

“Let's not get distracted. I'm all for not making the perfect the enemy of the good, but the tax brackets were low when Bush got into office ("Corporate taxes are at a historic low" -- Warren Buffet). I'd say let's roll back the *Reagan* tax cuts. That's what's really sent us on this downward spiral.

Here's Larry Beinhart, author of "Wag the Dog", and his take on the full story:
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/106979”

“Lowering corporate taxes isn't needed. "Corporate tax rates have never been lower" -- Warren Buffet.

Payroll taxes are the ones ripe for cuts. They quadrupled between Reagan and Bush 41, as those administrations lowered the top income tax rates. As a result, the bottom 90% of income earners have experienced a 7% decline in real incomes over the last 30 years. The top 0.01% have received a 497% raise, meantime (those are the real numbers).

By proposing tax cuts, Obama may be hedging his bets with Republicans, but there's plenty of evidence that re-raising those top rates would be a far better move. See Larry Beinhart's piece here for the details: http://www.alternet.org/story/106979/why_the_economy_grows_like_crazy_amid_high_taxes/”

“Reagan signed eight tax increases, and between Reagan and Bush 41, payroll taxes quadrupled.

Payroll taxes are the most regressive, so as you might expect, the lowest 90% of income earners have seen a 7% decline in real income since Reagan began this debacle. Meanwhile, the top 0.01% have had a 497% raise (those are the real numbers).

See Larry Beinhart's look at why high progressive tax rates are very helpful here: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/106979”

“I envision Bush stationed on a carnival dunk tank, only instead of baseballs, people would throw shoes. All proceeds to the widows and orphans of Iraq.”

“The "Austrian School" of economics "is a heterodox school of economics. It emphasizes the spontaneous organizing power of the price mechanism, holds that the complexity of subjective human choices makes mathematical modelling of the evolving market extremely difficult (or impossible) and therefore advocates a laissez faire approach to the economy. "

In other words, these are the guys George W. Bush and his neocon economics team looked to for inspiration. (The above quote is from Wikipedia)

I won't quarrel about the debt-based monetary system, but really... praising the inspiration for the neocons is really beyond the pale. Both Ron Paul and Alan Greenspan are cited as acolytes for this particular brand of thinking. Again, beyond the pale.

Read Ravi Batra's "Greenspan's Fraud" for the real scoop here. It's Austrians who have got us in the mess we're in. Not that others haven't contributed.

And yes, you can create productivity by fiat. Socialized medicine, or healthcare definitively proves that over and over. U.S. healthcare costs nearly double the next most expensive single-payer (German) plan, and is by far the most expensive in the world. Healthcare productivity isn't so good, though. The WHO ranks the U.S. 37th in the world. One editorial says it's as though we got the healthcare of Costa Rica, but paid six times what the Costa Ricans pay for the privilege.”

“Part 4:

What about GDP, the source of all wealth? Phillips says that "federal
economists used the Gross National Product until 1991, when rising
U.S. international debt made the narrower GDP assessment more
palatable.­" He notes that a full 15 percent of GDP is "imputed". This
includes the fees that banks don't charge you if you have a "free"
checking account and rent that you didn't have to pay because you
owned a house. The CIA factbook says that our population is growing at
0.9% (mostly immigration and the children of recent immigrants) and
GDP is growing at 2.2%, but if it doesn't feel like the average person
is getting richer that might be partially because much of the GDP
growth is fake (in addition to the hedge fund managers and CEOs taking
most of the new money (and much of the old) for themselves). Phillips
does not estimate our true economic growth, but claims that much has
been illusory, without even resorting to pointing out that much GDP
comes from things that add no net value when you compare American
lives in 1998 to American lives in 2008, e.g., rebuilding from Katrina
and Florida hurricanes, replacing things that are broken or stolen,
hiring hundreds of thousands of security guards to deal with risks of
terrorism perceived only after September 11, making Iraq safe for
Iraqis, reinforcing cockpit doors on airliners, buying guns and
running training courses for airline pilots, ..., etc.”

“Part 3:

Phillips claims that the true rate of
inflation is between 7 and 10 percent, not the 2-3 percent published
by the government. [Support for this theory might be seen in the
reluctance of foreigners now to trade their euro for dollars except at
historically extreme exchange rates.]

Aside from reducing government pension costs, how do politicians and
their cronies benefit from a lower published inflation number?
Phillips claims that a low inflation rate makes investors comfortable
with accepting a lower interest rate, which makes it much cheaper for
the government to borrow money and also helps those who benefit from
real estate bubbles. Phillips cites a 2007 article by Robert Hardaway
saying that the subprime circus (which made a lot of people very rich
before it made the Greater Fools rather poor) "can be directly traced
back to the [1983] BLS decision to exclude the price of housing from
the CPI".”

“Part 2:
Calculations behind the inflation numbers cited in newspapers are
beyond the grasp of any layperson. One of the most obvious distortions
in the inflation index is that it is adjusted for "hedonic value", on
the theory that new widgets, made with Chinese slave labor, are better
than old widgets, made by the lunchpail Americans for whom Barack
Obama feels pity. The $500 Whirlpool dishwasher from the 1996 is
replaced by a $1200 Bosch in 2007. Inflation? Not for the civil
servants who construct the index; they assume that the Bosch is
superior somehow (and it would be for them, having so far generated at
least 8 days when they could have taken off work to wait for the
repairman). A non-obvious distortion is created by ignoring what
homeowners actually pay for mortgage, maintenance, real estate taxes,
etc. Starting in the 1980s, the BLS began to use "owner equivalent
rents", i.e., asking homeowners "If someone were to rent your home
today, how much do you think it would rent for monthly, unfurnished
and without utilities?" (source). Under the Nixon Administration, food
and energy were going up in price, so these items were removed from
the published "core inflation" number, which happens also to be the
basis of cost-of-living adjustments that the government must pay for
pensions and Social Security.”

“Part 1 (from )

May 2008 Harpers's Magazine carries an article, (not online),
"Why the Economy is Worse Than You Know" by Kevin Phillips.

Unemployment statistics were redefined starting in the early 1960s by
the Kennedy Administration. First they took out the "discouraged",
people who wanted a job, but had stopped looking. Under the Reagan
Administration, the workforce was expanded by adding in members of the
U.S. military, who were by definition "employed", thus shrinking the
percentage of "unemployed". The Clinton Administration reduced the
number of households sampled from 60,000 to 50,000 and "a
disproportionate number of the dropped households were in the inner
cities." Phillips doesn't talk about prisoners, but we have greatly
increased our prison population, most of those incarcerated are
working-age men, and none are counted in the workforce. Phillips
claims that "Based on the criteria in place a quarter century ago,
today's U.S. unemployment rate is somewhere between 9 percent and 12
percent." [Poking around at http://www.bls.gov/cps/ reveals that, in
2007, 146 million of us were working, 7 million were unemployment, and
4.7 million were classified as not in the workforce but "wanted a
job"; an additional 2.3 million Americans were in prison, presumably
due to their energetic work habits in illegal trades. The "U-6″
series, published by the BLS but almost never reported by newspapers,
shows an unemployment rate right now of 9.1 percent.]”

“Of the Bush administration's stated 18 goals for "the surge," three have been realized. If you were scoring an exam where you got three out of 18 questions right, would you get an A+?”

“Of the Bush administration's stated 18 goals for "the surge," three have been realized. If you were scoring an exam where you got three out of 18 questions right, would you get an A+?”