March 30, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

THE AGE OF BARBARIANS

The United States was founded by men in tune with the Enlightenment. They were intellectuals. But anti-intellectualism has a long and sordid history in the United States. It has been fashionable among some politicians to talk about "pointy-headed" intellectuals, as though being uninformed, bigoted, and jingoistic is a virtue. We've seen anti-intellectualism rise to its apogee with George W. Bush. We should remember that civilization has advanced because of intellectuals such as Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Charles Darwin, John Locke, Albert Einstein, John Maynard Keynes, Thomas Jefferson, and others. This is a review of Susan Jacoby's book The Age of American Unreason at www.boston.com:

Recently added to the list of impending dooms - global warming, a retro-1930s economy, seven more months of sleeping children in campaign ads - come stern warnings from The New Yorker and The New Republic on the death of the printed word. Be it newspapers, magazines, or an archaic instrument called the book, Americans in general, and young ones in particular, are bypassing them with alarming consistency. Novels and serious nonfiction rarely fly off the shelves at our waning independent bookstores. Newspaper circulation is declining; book review sections like the one you're reading are prompting some critics to consider more relevant lines of work like, say, barrel staving. Couple this with the ascendancy of the ever-streaming blogosphere, wireless devices that seem to do all but direct a funeral, and we've entered perilous times indeed.

The vulgarians may be at the gates, but they're "2 bize txtn" or playing water polo on their Wiis to prevent our intellectual culture from plunging further into the muck. That's sort of how Susan Jacoby sees it in her engaging and unrepentantly (and often unbearably) crotchety history of American anti-intellectualism, "The Age of American Unreason."

REPUBLICANS DO CREATE ECONOMIC MESSES

You'll hear or read that the U. S. President, ultimately, has little control over the economy. But I don't agree. It's true that the economy is a very complex business, subject to all kinds of fluctuations, and not all of those fluctuations are under the direct control of the president. But it's no accident that every time a Republican is in the White House we have a lousy economy. It goes all the way back to Herbert Hoover. Republicans believe in laissez-faire, letting business do whatever it wants. They believe in minimal taxes on the very wealthy, while expecting the rest of us to pick up the slack. They believe in holding down wages, busting unions, and outsourcing jobs to cheaper labor markets. They believe "the market" should decide everything, even if "the market" gives us contaminated food, unsafe vehicles and appliances, toxic toys, and inadequate or unaffordable health care. George W. Bush has exemplified the typical Republican crackpot ideas on economics and taken them several steps further. Even more, he has taken the typical hubris of Republican foreign policy and mired us in a war that is unnecessary and endless. This column by Tom Danehy is at www.tucsonweekly.com:

Nevertheless, there are facets to economic theory that do work more often than not, and can therefore be exploited. I contend that George W. Bush, his administration and his cronies have done so to the outrageous benefit of a select few and to the great detriment to the rest of us.

We'll start with energy, the cost of which is having a devastating ripple effect throughout our economy. Remember how one of the first things Bush did was to have Dick Cheney set up that fake energy board, ostensibly to explore ways to make America energy-independent? It was quickly unmasked, but it sent the message to the oil giants that they could do just about anything they wanted as long as a Texas oilman sat in the White House. This has led to staggering profits, the consolidation of power and oil prices that get more ridiculous by the day.

March 28, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


SELECTIVE GOVERNMENT HELP

Republicans have been big on the notion of "personal responsibility." You don't need bankruptcy laws, for instance, because people should use "personal responsibility" and not get into debt. Never mind that there are all kinds of different circumstances people encounter. But "personal responsibility" doesn't apply to big corporations. The bailout of Bear Stearns just illustrates the point. The failure to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina also illustrates the point. This article by Allison Kilkenny is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

The Bush administration and its staff of flying monkeys are either unwilling or incapable of providing American citizens with basic services. Their main failures regard regulation, one of the foundational purposes of having a government in the first place. When the government goons DO decide to perform some kind of regulation, it's usually done to strictly benefit wealthy corporations. Free trade advocates claim this is regulation run amuck, but the bailout is merely a continuation of the selling out of America to the corporation. The act simply masquerades as government regulation, but the truth is that cronyism has infested Washington and Wall Street, alike, resulting in the government's desire to protect the wealth instead of the people.

WE SHOULDN'T BE HOSTAGE TO BIG MONEY

An old maxim advises not to put all your eggs in one basket. Yet that is what we've been doing by transferring so much wealth and power to just a few people at the top of the economic pyramid. We're supposed to trust these people because they're the best and brightest in the worlds of manufacturing, technology, banking, communications, and transportation. We were told that for these wonderful folks to innovate they needed less government regulation. The results have been dismal. Who wants to fly now on airlines that don't maintain their planes? Who feels truly comfortable with the food supply when food is consistently contaminated by e. coli and other pathogens? Who likes the higher phone bills and confusion we get with deregulated phone service? How about energy deregulation? Remember Enron? Now we see what's happening with banking deregulation. We shouldn't be held hostage to what Theodore Roosevelt called "the malefactors of great wealth." This article by James Ridgeway is at www.commondreams.org:

Deregulation has been the mantra on both sides of the aisle since the late 1960s. Long gone are Democrats like Michigan’s Phil Hart who, as chair of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, held hearings on the concentration of economic power in the United States, and proposed expanded government regulation of everything from the oil and auto industries to pharmaceuticals to professional sports. Hart believed that because wealth and power were concentrated in the hands of such a small number of corporations, the market economy had become no more than a facade. In this context, what would bring about lower prices and greater productivity and innovation was more government intervention and regulation, not less.

Hart got a Senate building named after him, but his warnings about the threat of unbridled corporate power and consolidation went unheeded. Instead, the rush to deregulation began, first in the transportation sector. Efforts begun under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford came to fruition under Jimmy Carter, who hired deregulation guru Alfred E. Kahn to head the Civil Aeronautics Board, the widely loathed agency responsible for regulating the airline industry. Senator Ted Kennedy and his then aide, future Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, embraced deregulation as a consumer issue, and with their support, Kahn quickly worked his way out of a job: The 1978 Airline Deregulation Act dissolved the CAB and removed most regulation of commercial airlines. Carter also signed into law bills deregulating the railroads and the trucking industry.

March 27, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

MAYBE WE NEED A PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM

For the most part, I admire the United States Constitution. The system of checks and balances the Founding Fathers built into the Constitution were supposed to be a safeguard against an oppressive and autocratic government. The Founders couldn't foresee the Bush-Cheney administration. This administration does what it wants to do. It's damn the Constitution and full speed ahead. Bush and Cheney love favorable polls, but polls that don't support their war in Iraq get ignored. This column by Helen Thomas is at www.commondreams.org:

Back in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s worst days when he was grappling with the Vietnam quagmire and raucous anti-war protests at home, he said that in the big decisions about war and peace: "The people should be in on the take offs as well as the landings."

Tell that to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who apparently couldn’t care less what Americans think - except every four years at election time.

Cheney made that clear in an intriguing interview with ABC News on his recent Middle East trip. Despite the difficulties surrounding the unprovoked U.S. invasion of Iraq five years ago, Cheney insisted, "It was the right thing to do."

When the interviewer told him that two-thirds of Americans say the war in Iraq is not worth fighting, Cheney scoffed. The administration would not be "blown off course by the fluctuations in public opinion polls," he vowed.

Cheney went on to claim that Abraham Lincoln would never have succeeded in the Civil War if he had paid attention to polls. White House press secretary Dana Perino later indicated that Bush was on the same page.

THE DOMINO EFFECT OF DISASTER

When you look at the subprime mortgage crisis you can see an almost domino-like effect. The dominos started falling with stagnating wages back in the 1970's. Women increasingly went to work because one income wasn't enough anymore. Then along came Bush and Greenspan. Since two incomes weren't even enough to survive, people began to tap into their home equity to make up the difference. Low interest rates and deceptive lending practices eventually led us to where we are now. This article by Don Monkerud is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

The current financial crisis grew out of politicized government policy and a shared belief among business elites to support a laissez-fair, free market, anti-tax economy unhindered by regulations. And ordinary citizens are paying the price of a system rigged to the advantage of those who manipulate capital.

"The foreclosure crisis is a man-made phenomena," said David M. Abromowitz, senior fellow for the Center for American Progress. "It's not just the side effect of a normal market cycle. There was a push to boost home ownership and a pattern of under regulating financial services and support from all kinds of businesses to allow the free market to take over."

The crisis originated in Allen Greenspan's decision to lower Federal interest rates to protect the economy from recession after the Internet stock bubble and 9/11 imperiled the economy. While the Fed kept interest rates low, investors sought higher returns and real estate appeared undervalued.

Although housing costs had risen at a yearly rate of 1.8% over inflation since the Carter presidency, they shot up an average of 7% a year from 2000 to 2004. Easy money under Bush's policy of an "ownership society" increased ownership rates 1.4% and pushed the cost of the median home from $130,000 in 2000 to a peak of $221,900 in 2006.

March 26, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


THE FREE MARKET IS FOR SUCKERS

Guys who ran medicine shows would promise wondrous results from their elixirs. Unfortunately, the elixirs were a sham, and when the buyers discovered they'd been had the medicine shows had moved on. It's that way with the free market. We're told it's this wonderful process that can make us rich. But only a few people get rich, often at the expense of others. The people who advocate the market the most look down on the poor and the working class. We're just not smart or thrifty enough. But when they need a bailout, guess who foots the bill? This column by Ellen Goodman is at www.chron.com:

I grant you that moral hazard is not a myth. But most of the sermons railing against the harm of helping others are directed at the poorer pews.

We don't seem to worry about the moral hazard of, say, protecting a CEO from his failings. Need I remind you that Robert Nardelli got $210 million in severance after he hammered Home Depot? Or that he now resides at the top of Chrysler? What lesson did other chief executives learn from the Citigroup CEO who had $64 billion in market value evaporate on his watch and nevertheless exited with a $68 million package and a $1.7 million pension?

This leads us right into the den of Bear Stearns. Last weekend, while its chief executive was off playing bridge, one of the most aggressive, cowboy firms in the mortgage securities business collapsed. The government brokered a deal with J.P. Morgan Chase to buy the firm and guarantee its loans with your tax dollars.

Bailout is too strong a word for what happened. Teaspooned-out would be better. The Bear Stearns worker bees looking at their life savings and pensions disappear are not flitting off to the beach, although I was charmed to note that the company will have grief counselors at hand. But it is true that the government went to the rescue.

WHAT DO WE BECOME NOW?

It may take decades to undo the damage from the Bush administration. Some of the damage will never be undone. We can't raise the dead. We can't take back the torture. We can't restore the lost limbs or undo the horrible visions of an unnecessary war. Bush has taken us to a dark side, but where do we go when we find ourselves back in the light? If we learn anything, maybe it's that the time of empires and superpowers is past. As JFK said, we all breathe the same air. We all inhabit this small blue marble of a planet. This article by Mark Morford is at www.sfgate.com:

Some say this pain, this fiscal crisis, this enormous instability will last a few years. Some say no way, it will be at least a generation or two before we can right this ship of state again, so deep are the wounds and so insane is our national debt and so violent the damage to our reputation, our identity, our enfeebled infrastructure.

But I'm more with those who say, no, the truth is we will never truly recover, that America's former ranking as Gilded and Irreproachable Empire No. 1 is dead and gone. India and China are dramatically changing the game, peak oil is nigh, fresh water is the new gold, the planet itself is in paroxysm, Mother Nature is quickly revealing her hand — or rather, maybe just that one big, stormy middle finger.

But maybe this is the best news of all. Because the sort of gluttonous empire Bush so disgustingly represented was doomed to failure. The center could not hold. Dubya may not have hastened the apocalypse like the evangelicals desperately prayed he would, but he certainly is hastening the end of the bloviated American ego.

March 25, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

GOVERNMENT A TOOL OF THE RICH

Right-wingers call the very rich the "achievers." We're told you can't "punish the achievers" by making them pay taxes based on their wealth. We're told that the rich already pay most of the income taxes (maybe because they have most of the income). We're told that the business of America is business and all that nasty regulation is an impediment to business. Even though we hear about democracy in this country, we have morphed into a kleptocracy. Most of us, in one form or another, are servants of the very rich. Forget about all those glorious words like "all men are created equal." This article by Charles Sullivan is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Neoconservatives derive much of their political strength from the portrayal of big government as the enemy of the people: a belief that plays only too well in America. Big government is indeed the enemy of the people when it does not serve the people’s interests, or when it betrays them.

Where the neoconservatives and the chicken hawks have been spectacularly successful is in the field of perception management. The super rich—or the ruling clique—constitutes no more than 0.1 percent of the US population. Yet they control the mainstream media, every branch government, the electoral process and the country’s major financial institutions.

Thus, 99.9 percent of the people are being manipulated and cannibalized by a tiny but powerful minority. It is the interests of this powerful minority that are served by government and it is their interests that are defined as the national interest or as national security; and it is hardly benign. Robbing the poor to pay the rich causes irreparable harm to the victim.

March 23, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


BUSH: ONLY THE RICH GET GOVERNMENT HELP

As the subprime mortgage crisis washes over the economy, the Bush administration was very prompt to bail out investment firm Bear Stearns. The excuse is that the government can't allow a major bank like Bear Stearns to fail. But if you're the average person whose mortgage costs have gotten out of hand, tough luck, pal. This whole fiasco is a direct result of the anti-regulation ideology of reactionary conservatives, who believe in the "free market." Of course, the "free market" doesn't apply when it's the very rich. This article by By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Lori Montgomery is at www.washingtonpost.com:

Now that the Federal Reserve has pledged billions of dollars to rescue Wall Street bankers from possible default, lawmakers and regulators are turning their attention to helping average citizens -- from homeowners in danger of foreclosure to people who want to buy a home.

But unlike the Fed's rapid moves last week to stabilize financial markets, the consumer benefits are likely to progress slowly as they face resistance from the Bush administration on some broad issues and from special interests on some narrow ones.

Bush officials are working with lawmakers on proposals that would help new home buyers and small investors by strengthening rules that govern mortgage lending.

THE LIFE EXPECTANCY GAP

It turns out that the United States not only has a gulf between the rich and poor in income, but also in life expectancy. Being poor increases the chances for a shorter life. Right-wingers will undoubtedly spin this that poor people "choose" to live unhealthier lives. But lack of money dictates so many things. It dictates your diet because you buy the food you can afford. It dictates the health care you get or don't get. It dictates the kind of neighborhood where you live. Poor neighborhoods tend to have more crime than more affluent areas, for example. Poor people also tend to live nearer things like toxic waste dumps. This article by Robert Pear is at www.nytimes.com:

WASHINGTON — New government research has found "large and growing" disparities in life expectancy for richer and poorer Americans, paralleling the growth of income inequality in the last two decades.

Life expectancy for the nation as a whole has increased, the researchers said, but affluent people have experienced greater gains, and this, in turn, has caused a widening gap.

One of the researchers, Gopal K. Singh, a demographer at the Department of Health and Human Services , said "the growing inequalities in life expectancy" mirrored trends in infant mortality and in death from heart disease and certain cancers.

The gaps have been increasing despite efforts by the federal government to reduce them. One of the top goals of "Healthy People 2010," an official statement of national health objectives issued in 2000, is to "eliminate health disparities among different segments of the population," including higher- and lower-income groups and people of different racial and ethnic background.

Dr. Singh said last week that federal officials had found "widening socioeconomic inequalities in life expectancy" at birth and at every age level.

He and another researcher, Mohammad Siahpush, a professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, developed an index to measure social and economic conditions in every county, using census data on education, income, poverty, housing and other factors. Counties were then classified into 10 groups of equal population size.

In 1980-82, Dr. Singh said, people in the most affluent group could expect to live 2.8 years longer than people in the most deprived group (75.8 versus 73 years). By 1998-2000, the difference in life expectancy had increased to 4.5 years (79.2 versus 74.7 years), and it continues to grow, he said.

After 20 years, the lowest socioeconomic group lagged further behind the most affluent, Dr. Singh said, noting that "life expectancy was higher for the most affluent in 1980 than for the most deprived group in 2000."

"If you look at the extremes in 2000," Dr. Singh said, "men in the most deprived counties had 10 years’ shorter life expectancy than women in the most affluent counties (71.5 years versus 81.3 years)." The difference between poor black men and affluent white women was more than 14 years (66.9 years vs. 81.1 years).

The Democratic candidates for president, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, have championed legislation to reduce such disparities, as have some Republicans, like Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi.

Peter R. Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office , said: "We have heard a lot about growing income inequality. There has been much less attention paid to growing inequality in life expectancy, which is really quite dramatic."

Life expectancy is the average number of years of life remaining for people who have attained a given age.

March 20, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

CONSERVATISM IS A ROTTEN PHILOSOPHY

No matter how they try to dress it up, conservatives really believe in one thing: greed. Supposedly, if we all look out for number one society will thrive. It's a little like saying when the ship is sinking you should jump in the lifeboat and kick everyone else out. It's survival of the fittest, as long as the fittest is you. This column by Alicia Morgan is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

That's the essence of the conservative worldview: as long as I've got mine, I don't care if you have yours. The idea of everyone pursuing his or her own self-interest, then by the invisible hand, the self-interest of all will be maximized, or in the parlance of the Eighties, "Greed is good!" - is the one-size-fits-all answer to poverty, to injustice, to inequality. But what it boils down to in real life is "I've got mine." The idea that every person that works full-time is due enough compensation to support themselves, let alone a family, doesn't even enter into the calculation. It's okay for other people to be underpaid, overworked, taken advantage of. All that matters is - it's not me.

This is why conservatism just plain doesn't work - at least for the kind of society we say we want as Americans. There has to be some kind of consideration for more than just 'me and mine'. The place we're at right now - teetering on the brink of an economic collapse that could easily become a depression, embroiled in a grotesque, bloody occupation with no end in sight, pretending to be 'liberators' with no concern as to whether the country we're occupying wants us there or not, with a Vice-President who doesn't care how many Americans object to the war (apparently the two-thirds of Americans who say it's not worth fighting are merely exhibiting 'fluctuations in opinion', like toddlers who don't like apple juice today, but loved it yesterday), with the largest divide between rich and poor since the robber barons of the Gilded Age - is a place that conservatism, with its selfish, childish and short-sighted "I got mine" has brought us to.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CONSERVATISM'S DISASTERS

The consequences of conservatism are manifold and disastrous except for the very few at the top of the economic pyramid. After years of propaganda about "big government" and taxes, conservatives had the chance to try out their ideas on a national and international stage. We see the sorry results. This article by Eric Lotke is at www.truthout.org:

Modern conservatism is dying. There's still an election to be held, but conservatism as we've known it since Ronald Reagan is failing - ground down in the desert of Iraq, drowned in the floods of Hurricane Katrina, foreclosed by the housing crisis and poisoned by toys imported from China.

The American people are figuring this out. While conservatives repeat their time-worn slogans - "small government, low taxes, high security" - the American people are living the consequences.

We've seen eight years of a conservative presidency, six years overlapping with a conservative Congress, and 30 years of broadly conservative ideology. Now reality is showing how the values embodied in those slogans have been betrayed.

Conservatives say "shrink government." We get inadequate levees, exploding steam pipes and schools without textbooks. Conservatives say "deregulate," and now Thomas the Tank Engine is painted with toxic lead. Conservatives say "low taxes," but it primarily applies to millionaires, billionaires and crony corporations.

And eventually, my conservative friends, even you may find yourself holding the short end of the stick. You may end up being the one treading water while someone else roars away to safety in the speedboat, oblivious to your cries for help. The policy of "I got mine" only leads to fewer and fewer people who have "got theirs" and more and more people who get next to nothing. Sooner or later, you'll be one of the latter. It's just a matter of time.

March 19, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


BUSH'S LEGACY

George W. Bush will undoubtedly go down as the worst president in our history. From the very start, this administration has smacked of cronyism, incompetence, lying, and outright corruption. "Highlights" of the Bush years would include the attack on 9/11, which might had been prevented with someone competent at the helm. It will include a nest of lies about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction and a war that was unnecessary. It will include consistent assaults on civil liberties. It will include end runs around the Constitution with the use of "signing statements." It will include torture. It will include an outright assault on science that didn't fit Bush's ideology. And it will include total mismanagement of the economy. This article by Robert Scheer is at www.commondreams.org:


That idiotic "what me worry?" look just never leaves the man’s visage. Once again there was our president, presiding over disasters in part of his making and totally on his watch, grinning with an aplomb that suggested a serious disconnect between his worldview and existing reality. Be it in his announcement that Iraq was being secured on a day when bombs ripped through that sad land or posed between his treasury secretary and the Federal Reserve chairman to applaud the government’s bailout of a failed bank, George Bush was the only one inexplicably smiling.

Failure suits him. It is a stance he learned well while presiding over one failed Texas business deal after another, and it served him splendidly as he claimed the title of president of the United States after losing the popular, and maybe even the electoral, vote. It carried him through the most ignominious chapter of U.S. foreign policy, from the lies about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to an unprecedented presidential defense of torture.

The totally unwarranted assurance was there this week as the once proud dollar fell into the toilet and the debacle of Iraq and Bush’s other failed Mideast policies pushed oil prices to record highs. The Europeans, who didn’t support the U.S. imperial intervention, are doing much better, not having to pay for guarding besieged oil pipelines while U.S. taxpayers are saddled with trillions in future debt, not to mention 4,000 U.S. military deaths and 30,000 U.S. injuries in a war the administration had promised would be paid for with Iraqi oil revenues. Even in Baghdad last week there wasn’t enough oil to keep the lights on for more than a few hours.

THE ABSURDITY OF LAISSEZ-FAIRE

Right-wingers and libertarians love the "free market." The free market is where men are men, or something like that. It's the domain of the "achievers." I have thought that, under their definition, Al Capone was an achiever. Al provided what consumers wanted in bootleg whiskey, gambling, and prostitution. The Great Depression should have provided a warning. It was no accident that the laissez-faire capitalism of the 1920's led to the Depression. It's no accident that the reactionary policies of the Bush administration have put us in economic peril. This article by Alicia Morgan is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Conservatives are all about faith. The same people who pooh-pooh evolution as 'only a theory' and believe global warming is a hoax have an almost religious belief in laissez-faire capitalism. It is an article of faith with them that if the shackles of regulation and taxation were thrown off, a perfect economic miracle would occur. Everyone would be well-off – some more well-off than others, of course. The Market would ensure that competition was fair, and that therefore there would be no need of regulation! The Consumer would decide whether to buy a company’s products, and so the company would be forced to be ethical or else be punished by the Consumer. But the twin devils of Taxation and Regulation keep this miracle from happening.

This economic theory does not need any empirical evidence to be believed in fervently. The theory is more important than the results. If the results don't pan out, it only means that the theory has not been applied properly. More tax cuts! More deregulation!

You serfs who are losing your homes - it's all your own fault! If you can't afford the usurious interest rates, then you have no business buying houses. You mean you believed what your mortgage broker told you? Hey, not our fault. Caveat emptor, baby. Don't expect the government to come to your rescue, you freeloaders!

March 18, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

BUSH INCOMPETENCE ON DISPLAY

Bush fans have cited some things they like about the guy. He's the first president with an MBA, for example. He's one of the "grownups in charge." He's "decisive," even to the point of the absurd. I think more accurate descriptions of Bush are: incompetent, lazy, arrogant, and corrupt. Bush made a half-hearted attempt at a speech to reassure the financial sector and Americans in general that things are really hunky-dory in our economy. This column by Gail Collins is at www.nytimes.com:

The president squinched his face and bit his lip and seemed too antsy to stand still. As he searched for the name of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (“the king, uh, the king of Saudi”) and made guy-fun of one of the questioners (“Who picked Gigot?”), you had to wonder what the international financial community makes of a country whose president could show up to talk economics in the middle of a liquidity crisis and kind of flop around the stage as if he was emcee at the Iowa Republican Pig Roast.

We’re really past expecting anything much, but in times of crisis you would like to at least believe your leader has the capacity to pretend he’s in control. Suddenly, I recalled a day long ago when my husband worked for a struggling paper full of worried employees and the publisher walked into the newsroom wearing a gorilla suit.


THE FINANCIAL COSTS OF IRAQ

The Bush administration lied to the American people about Iraq on several fronts. We were told that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, which he did not. We were told there was an alliance between Iraq and al-Qaeda, which there was not. We were told the war would be paid for by Iraq's oil revenues, which have not begun to pay for the costs of this war. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has said this war will cost three trillion dollars. We have the actual costs of maintaining troops and supplying them in Iraq and we will have the interest to pay on money borrowed to finance the war. We will also have massive amounts of veterans benefits to pay. This war is already the second most expensive in our history. This doesn't even take into account the human costs of the war in deaths, wounds, and psychological damage. This article by Zachary Coile is at www.sfgate.com:

It was supposed to be a quick war and a cheap one. Five years later, 160,000 U.S. troops are still in Iraq. And the costs keep piling up - $12 billion every month - putting a strain on an already faltering economy.

The United States has poured more than $500 billion into Iraq, mostly for military operations. But that figure is just a small piece of the much larger bill that taxpayers will pay in the future.

Because the money for the war is being borrowed, interest payments could add another $615 billion. A heavily depleted military will have to be rebuilt at a cost of $280 billion. Disability benefits and health care for Iraq war veterans, many of them severely injured, could add another half-trillion dollars over their lifetime.

Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University public finance Professor Laura Bilmes, both of whom served in the Clinton administration, have included those calculations in a new study of the war's long-term costs. Their estimate of the war's price tag: $3 trillion.

March 16, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

THE GREAT TAX DELUSION

It's strange that for a time the Republican party was called by some the "party of ideas." There's really nothing new in Republican land. You get variations on the same old nonsense. One of the core and enduring policies in Republican policies is tax cuts. Tax cuts are their economic plan, especially tax cuts for their fat cat friends. Never mind if you get whopping deficits or massive inequality. Tax cuts, we're told, will lead us to the land of milk and honey. Even in the recent "stimulus package" there were tax cuts. Analysts say the best stimulus would be to increase unemployment benefits and food stamp benefits, but Republicans hate anything that helps the working class or the poor. This article by Walter Williams and Bryan D. Jones is at seattlepi.nwsource.com:


Rather than see the stimulus package as a political and economic success, we see it as a mark of the continued failure of the political system to face problems and design policies directed at ameliorating them.

First, the experience with the economic stimulus package shows clearly that the federal government now lacks the capacity to cope with the massive economic problems that are pushing the nation toward second-class economic status.

Second, the source of this inability is the unshakeable ideological belief of President Bush and the Republican Party that income tax cuts are the cure-all for the nation's economic problems. This core belief led to a flawed stimulus package, a repeat of the bad logic leading to the administration's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

Third, the 2008 legislation has many of the same flaws as the earlier tax cuts that put the U.S. on the path toward fiscal insolvency, left the middle class in the worst financial straits in the post-World War II era, and brought the widest income inequality since the 1920s-effects we document clearly in our new book, "The Politics of Bad Ideas: The Great Tax Cut Delusion and the Decline of Good Government in America."

March 15, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

REAPING THE POISON FRUIT

Right-wing "philosophy" essentially consists of an aggressive foreign policy, a big military and huge military expenditures, a laissez-faire attitude toward business that says the less regulation the better, and minimal taxes for the most affluent people in the country. There is a mix of religion thrown in, with the usual claims that the United States is a Christian country, and that a restoration of school prayer and abolition of abortion would make God like us again. We are seeing the fruition of right-wing ideas with the grossly immoral war in Iraq, the destruction of our middle class at home, and the demise of American power around the world. This commentary by Paul Craig Roberts is at www.counterpunch.org:

The bottom line: US power is enfeebled. US power depends on the willingness of foreigners to finance our wars and on the willingness of foreigners to continue to accumulate depreciating dollar assets. The US cannot close its trade deficit. Oil prices are rising, and offshore production of goods and services for US markets results in a dollar-for-dollar increase in imports, while reducing the supply of domestic goods available for export.

The US cannot close its budget deficit while it is squandering vast sums on wars that serve no US purpose, handing out $150 billion in red ink rebates, and falling into recession.

US living standards, which have been stagnant for years, will plummet once dollar decline forces China off the dollar peg. So far prices of the Chinese-made goods on Wal-Mart shelves have not risen, because the Chinese currency, pegged to the dollar, falls in value with the dollar. In a word, tottering US living standards are being supported by China’s willingness to subsidize US consumption by keeping its currency grossly undervalued.

March 14, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

CAPITALISM'S TURNING POINT

Despite all the propaganda, capitalism has always been a bad economic system. Prior to the New Deal, most people were poor their entire lives with no economic security. If you couldn't find work, too bad. If you got too old to work, too bad. If you worked in conditions where you could get injured or killed, too bad. The New Deal saved capitalism from itself. But the greedy people who benefit from capitalism weren't happy with the New Deal reforms. We've seen a consistent assault on the reforms of the New Deal since the Reagan administration. Now the Bush administration has driven us to the cliff. It's obvious that "free market" capitalism will not get us out of this mess. This commentary by Peter Michaelson
is at www.buzzflash.com:

Capitalism is a hanger-on from a time of global colonialism, when slavery was thriving and women couldn't vote. Its followers haven't been able to tear themselves away from cold-blooded, bottom-line self-aggrandizement. It has pandered to our worst instincts. It finances the pollution of our free air and free water. Its relentless expansionism is too toxic, its promises of "heaven on earth" too corrosive to our moral fiber. Something new and greener is coming.

Solzhenitsyn said that, if the world has not approached its end, "it has reached a major watershed in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance." It's an exciting time to be alive, perhaps the beginning of the good times.

March 13, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


KEEPING SPITZER IN PERSPECTIVE

The corporate media may be disappointed that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer announced his resignation today. He will leave office on March 17 and the media won't have the "sex scandal" to flog 24/7 the way they did the Monica story during the Clinton administration. Sex is so much more marketable than crony capitalism or torture or immoral wars. This commentary by Robert Scheer is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

The sad truth is that reporting on major corruption, say, the rationalizations of a president who has authorized torture, doesn't cut it as a marketing bonanza. Just days before this grand expose, the president vetoed a bill banning torture, and instead of being greeted with horrified disgust, the president's deep denigration of this nation's presumed ideals was met with a vast public yawn. Torture, unlike paid sex, doesn't have legs as a news story.

Sex sells, and frankly it would seem far more exploitative for the news media to pimp this tale to the public than anything that VIP escort service did with the pitiable governor. His behavior was not really any more wretched than messing around with a young and vulnerable White House intern who didn't even get paid for her efforts, yet Bill Clinton survived that one, whereas Spitzer was presumed dead on the arrival of this "news." The New York Times, which editorially has supported the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, whose vast White House experience clearly did not include corralling her husband, now editorializes contemptuously about Spitzer's betrayal of the public trust as well as about his exploitation of his "ashen-faced" wife, who, like Hillary, stood by her man.

BUSH AND ELITES ARE DISGUSTING

George W. Bush, attired in a tuxedo, made an appearance at the swanky Gridiron Club and sang a little ditty to the melody of "Green, Green Grass of Home." Bush mocked the multitude of scandals in his administration and the elite crowd there laughed uproariously. Murderous wars are funny now. Crony capitalism is hilarious. People going without healthcare is a hoot. Global climate change is rib-tickling. These people look upon the rest of us with contempt. We're here to do all the dirty jobs that make their cushy lives possible. This article by Cindy Sheehan is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

With the unbelievable 5th anniversary of "shock and awe" looming before us like a dark cancer that is out of control, the Buffoon in Chief, George W. Bush, once again tormented the nation with another obscene display of idiocy. This time at the Gridiron Club. Singing to the tune of "Green, Green Grass of Home" he warbles about the major scandals of his administration: Valerie Plame; Katrina; cronyism; Harriet Miers and Brownie; Dick Cheney and the fatal attraction (for our troops and innocent people in the Middle East) that they all have for the Saudi Royal Family, etc.

The worst thing about the performance, besides that anyone would think that almost 8 years of unpunished high crimes and misdemeanors is anywhere near approaching funny, the stellar-in-their-own-minds, Washington "Elite" and some of the press corps were laughing uproariously and gave the traitor wearing a tuxedo and a cowboy hat a standing ovation.

Cameras were banned that night and from what I understand, agreements were made that video would not be shot, but still the song can be heard on YouTube. I get the feeling when these modern day Vampires get together like this, they frequently laugh at the rest of us with their parodies of heartache and devastation and chuckle all the way to the bank when they cash their paychecks drawn on the blood of so many innocent people.

March 11, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

A THREE DECADE DECLINE

The author of this article talks about the misleading picture provided by the Gross Domestic Product. The GDP is intended to provide a measure of economic growth. The GDP includes bad things as well as good things, as long as the bad things contribute somehow to economic growth. A new measure called the Gross Progress Indicator has been proposed. Using the GPI, most of us have seen a declining standard of living since 1975. This article by Robert Constanza is at www.latimes.com:

GDP measures the total market value of all goods and services produced in a country in a given period. But it includes only those goods and services traded for money. It also adds everything together, without discerning desirable, well-being-enhancing economic activity from undesirable, well-being-reducing activity. An oil spill, for example, increases GDP because someone has to clean it up, but it obviously detracts from well-being.

More crime, more sickness, more war, more pollution, more fires, storms and pestilence are all potentially positives for the GDP because they can spur an increase in economic activity.GDP also ignores activity that may enhance well-being but is outside the market.

The unpaid work of parents caring for their children at home doesn't show up in GDP, but if they decide to work outside the home and pay for child care, GDP suddenly increases. And even though $1 in income means a lot more to the poor than to the rich, GDP takes no account of income distribution.In short, GDP was never intended to be a measure of citizens' welfare -- and it functions poorly as such. Yet it is used as a surrogate appraisal of national well-being in far too many circumstances.

THE ABJECT FAILURE OF TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS

Pass by the boarded up windows of so many foreclosed houses and you can see the American Dream is going away. Pass by the corner gas station and see the breathtaking increase in fuel prices and you sense the Dream is gone. Try to find a decent job that pays livable wages and has benefits and confront the absence of the Dream. When the elites got their way with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 they got even more greedy than they had been before. They have been busily squeezing the middle and working class, suppressing unions, outsourcing jobs, getting handsome tax breaks for themselves, ignoring the country's infrastructure, letting the educational system fall into ruins, and waging immoral wars to control natural resources they want. This is the result. This column by Bob Herbert is at www.rackjite.com:

Maybe now we can stop listening to the geniuses who insisted that the way to nirvana was to ignore the broad national interest while catering to the desires of those who were already the wealthiest among us.

We have always gotten a distorted picture of how well Americans were doing from politicians and the media. The U.S. has a population of 300 million.Thirty-seven million, many of them children, live in poverty. Close to 60 million are just one notch above the official poverty line. These near-poor Americans live in households with annual incomes that range from $20,000 to $40,000 for a family of four. It is disgraceful that in a nation as wealthy as the United States, nearly a third of the people are poor or near-poor.

March 08, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

BUSH'S POLICIES SINKING ECONOMY

The latest jobs report shows a loss of 63,000 jobs last month. It's the second consecutive month of net jobs lost. Republican economics, especially the trickle down variety we've seen since Reagan, are toxic to the economy. No one except the very wealthy benefits from Republican economic policy. These guys can't leave the White House fast enough. This article by MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM is at www.nytimes.com:

The economy shed 63,000 jobs in February, the government said on Friday, the fastest falloff in five years and the strongest evidence yet that the nation is headed toward - or may already be in - a recession.

Manufacturers and construction companies, reeling from the worst housing slump in decades, led the declines in payrolls. But the losses were spread across a broad range of businesses - including department stores, offices and retail outlets - putting increased pressure on consumers’ pocketbooks.

The unexpected decline raised anticipation on Wall Street that the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates again later this month, perhaps by as much as a full percentage point, as the central bank scrambles to stave off a steep economic slowdown.

BUSH IS THE REAL ENEMY

I've found the nastiness in the Democratic primaries disturbing. I have no doubt that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have flaws. My first choice was John Edwards. But I also have little doubt that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton are infinitely preferable to John McCain and the continuation of the toxic policies of the Bush administration. If Hillary Clinton, in particular, loves this country and wants what is best for the country, she will cease the nasty campaign against Barack Obama. What is best for the country should take priority, not personal electoral success. This article by Sherwood Ross is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

If Senator Obama spends his time between now and the Pennsylvania primary April 22 attacking Senator Clinton he will have focused on the wrong target. Public Enemy No. 1 in America today is George Bush, not Hillary Clinton. When there's a Mafioso in the White House you don't spend your time attacking a legislator he's got in his pocket that voted his way. You go after the capo de regime.

There's enough material on Bush's crimes for Obama to come up with a new j'accuse white paper every day---unless, of course, he prefers to go on quibbling with Hillary over health plans. Health care, after all, is perceived as Hillary's strong suit and the one radio spot she ran for Wyoming focused on it.

Obama, of course, is right not to respond in kind to Hillary's smears. As Bob Herbert pointed out in the March 8, New York Times, when asked if she believed Obama was a Muslim, Ms. Clinton replied, "there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know." Got that? So maybe Obama is a Muslim after all, Hillary hints.

March 06, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

MCCAIN'S DISMAL RECORD ON IRAQ

The myth makers would have you believe that John McCain is a foreign policy expert, the kind of guy you want in charge during a foreign policy crisis. About the only real basis for that claim is that McCain served in the Vietnam war and was held by the North Vietnamese as a prisoner of war. It's a little like saying you've been in the hospital, so now you're qualified to do surgery. McCain has recently claimed that Bush's "surge" is working, but that we might be in Iraq for 100 years. This column by Walter C. Uhler is at www.walter-c-uhler.com:

In January 2003, the Arizona Senator with the supposedly impeccable national security credentials asserted: "I think the victory will be rapid, within about three weeks." In April, McCain claimed, "It's clear that the end is very much in sight." And in May 2003, a cheerleading McCain proclaimed, "the war in Iraq succeeded beyond the most optimistic expectations." That was almost five years ago!

In short, the Senator with the supposedly impeccable national security credentials has been wrong on Iraq since day one. Until recently, McCain said you should believe him when he claims the surge is working, but be prepared to stay in Iraq until America succeeds - whatever that means - even if we are there for a hundred years.

Recently, however -- apparently sensing that his "100 year thing" won't stand up against Obama's or Clinton's promise to get out of Iraq or impress the 60 percent of Americans who now believe the war was a mistake - the straight talker flip-flopped. Forget my words about "100 years." Instead: "My friends, the war will be over soon." I've been talking to my friend, Senator Lindsay Graham [another wrong-headed interventionist], who recently visited Baghdad. He says, "it's generally quiet" there.

ANOTHER KBR TAXPAYER RIP-OFF

Kellogg, Brown, and Root is the number one war contractor in Iraq. KBR has made a mint from a war that was never necessary or justified. They've been taking from United States taxpayers to fuel their profits. But that's not enough, evidently. They've also avoided paying United States taxes by creating phony offshore companies in the Cayman Islands. This story by Farah Stockman is at www.commondreams.org:

Kellogg Brown & Root, the nation’s top Iraq war contractor and until last year a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in this tropical tax haven.

More than 21,000 people working for KBR in Iraq - including about 10,500 Americans - are listed as employees of two companies that exist in a computer file on the fourth floor of a building on a palm-studded boulevard here in the Caribbean. Neither company has an office or phone number in the Cayman Islands.

The Defense Department has known since at least 2004 that KBR was avoiding taxes by declaring its American workers as employees of Cayman Islands shell companies, and officials said the move allowed KBR to perform the work more cheaply, saving Defense dollars.

March 02, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH



IMPEACH CHENEY



A LOOK AT THE REALITY OF THE FREE MARKET

We've been told that globalization is a truly marvelous thing. Opening up borders and allowing competition will produce nirvana. When we look around, though, we see our manufacturing sector almost gone, along with the good paying jobs that went with the manufacturing sector, and we see our balance of trade totally out of whack with countries like China. Elitists like Thomas Friedman smugly proclaim that the "world is flat" and that developing economies are now free to compete with established economies such as the United States and Britain. In this commentary Thom Hartmann reviews a book called BadSamaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang. The commentary is at www.buzzflash.com:

There are two glaringly obvious flaws in the so-called "free trade" theories expounded by neoliberal philosophers like Friedrich Von Hayek and Milton Friedman, and promoted relentlessly in the popular press by (very wealthy) hucksters like Thomas Friedman.
First, "infant" economies - countries that are only beginning to get on their feet - cannot "compete" with "mature" economies. They really only have two choices - lose to their more mature competitors and stand on the hungry and cold outside of the world of trade (as we see with much of Africa), or be colonized and exploited by the dominant corporate forces within the mature economies (as we see with Shell Oil and Nigeria, or historically with the "banana republics" of Central and South America and Asia and, literally, the banana corporations).
Second, the way "infant" economies become "mature" economies is not via free trade. It never has been and never will be. Whether it be the mature economies of Britain (which began to seriously grow in the early 1600s), America (late 1700s), Japan (1800s), or Brazil (1900s), in every single case, worldwide, without exception, the economic strength and maturity of a nation came about as a result not of governments "standing aside" or "getting out of the way" but instead of direct government participation in and protection of the "infant" industries and economy.



UNDOING THE RIGHT WING ASSAULT


Right-wingers will expound on the glories of the free market the way Pavlov's dogs would salivate at the ringing of a bell. We've had essentially thirty years of right-wing economic policy in place, and the grim consequences are like a moon crater in our economy. The tide may be shifting. People may be starting to realize that the unregulated free market is like a pack of wolves ravaging the sheep. This article by Donald Cohen is at www.commondreams.org:


The 2008 presidential race is clear evidence that the cone of silence is lifting and the narrative shifting. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are talking openly about the need for more active government.

In a recent NY Times interview Sen. Clinton spoke openly about the need for active government role in the economy to balance the excesses of the market. “If you go back and look at our history, we were most successful when we had that balance between an effective, vigorous government and a dynamic, appropriately regulated market” Clinton said. “And we have systematically diminished the role and responsibility of our government, and we have watched our market become imbalanced.”

She proclaimed: “I want to get back to the appropriate balance of power between government and market.”

Clinton’s remarks signal a return to the ideas of the great economic minds of the 20th century - the British economist John Maynard Keynes and his disciple, the American economist John Kenneth Galbraith - whose thinking shaped the New Deal and Great Society policy agenda. They recognized the need for countervailing power in market based economies. Now 30 some odd years after the right-wingers declared war on these ideas, the mainstream of the Democratic Party is speaking again of the limits of markets left alone.

Barack Obama too has articulated an agenda that make clear that the philosophical framework and place he comes from is all about the common good and reinvigorating a sense of national purpose. His calls for regulating the subprime industry, fair trade deals and investments in social and physical infrastructure represent a clear understanding of government’s role vis a vis the market.

March 1, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

HERE IN FREEPER LAND

Fresno is the home of the disgusting and reactionary website freerepublic.com, so it's probably no surprise to see a host of right-wing letters to The Fresno Bee.

You see lots of letters calling everything under the sun "socialism." You get letters saying that global warming is not real; it's just a plot to destroy the United States economy. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, you'll see letters claiming that Bush's invasion of Iraq was justified.

Lately, what sets off right-wingers is criticism of their idol Rush Limbaugh. I've seen letters claiming that Limbaugh is a "good man." People who criticize Limbaugh are "name calling," or drinking the "liberal Kool Aid." It seems a strange complaint from people who routinely use racism, sexism, and smear campaigns against their opponents.

One correspondent claimed that Al Franken and hosts on Air America were vile, but offered no specifics, of course. The writer then wanted proof of Limbaugh's hatemongering. It wouldn't take an extensive Internet search to find countless examples of Limbaugh mocking the poor, making outright racist statements, deriding feminists as "Feminazis" and all the rest.

Yes, right-wingers can go into extreme outrage about criticism of Rush Limbaugh, but an administration that lied us into this quagmire in Iraq isn't a problem. They deny global warming because, after all, Rush says there's nothing to worry about. The destruction of our civil liberties isn't a problem because they don't have anything to hide. The mixture of Church and state is okay because the United States is supposedly a Christian nation. The inequality we see thanks to Republican policies is fine because you can't "punish the achievers." It goes on and on.