Just Say Why

Mankind’s Exemption from Evolution
by
David G. Schlecht

I once had a dear friend explain to me that she believed in evolution but didn’t believe that mankind was subject to it. In my naivety, I poo pooed the notion that we could somehow be blessed with some magical powers endowed by our creator. Today, I must apologize for my failure to believe in the answer because of my discomfort with the delivery system. CLW, are you there?

Today I heard a discussion on the radio regarding the “ultimate goal” of evolution. Of course, this implies some magical forethought (or Intelligent Design) rather than a simple system of selection. But, still, what is the final phase (ultimate goal) of evolution? The final evolutionary phase of any successful species is to evolve beyond the reach of evolution. Let me explain.

All around us we see species mutating and dying off. In fact, last count I read was that we are seeing the extinction of hundreds of thousands of species every decade. Most of this is due to the success of the human race. Species that don’t do so well around humans (like many birds, wildlife like lions, ocean dwellers like dolphins) are all dying off. Species that coexist well with humans, like cockroaches, flourish.

Studies show that when a species’ parents are unhealthy (such as those under environmental pressures) they have a higher rate of birth defects. In other words, mutations increase as the species’ environmental fitness reduces.

Environmental fitness changes as the environment changes. As the environment becomes more alkali or more acidic, or more rich in oxygen or more rich in carbon or methane, the species may become less well adapted and thus experience more mutations. With the increased mutations, there is a chance that a random mutation may cause the offspring to be better adapted to the new environment and thus have a better chance of surviving, reproducing, and spreading the new, better characteristic (mutation).

I’m not talking evolution, here, but just describing what we all see around us every day. You may call it natural selection, or evolution, or God’s will, or the coming of the X-Men.

We see species change around us all the time. Just look at how good mankind has become at breeding dogs. Man made the different dog strains, not evolution. However, in the time that we’ve seen numerous breeds of dogs come and go, we’ve seen mankind stay exactly the same. There are no discernible genetic differences in mankind’s genes in our entire species’ history. We see different mixes and matches but no mutations allowing the offspring to better adapt to the environment.

Why is that? Why has mankind not evolved since we first began keeping records?

Mankind is reaching the pinnacle of evolutionary perfection. We are becoming such a well suited species that there are few mutations and none of the mutations create better suited offspring. Did God make us this way? Who knows. With no witnesses alive today to testify and no reliable history books from the dawn of mankind, your guess is as good as mine. And what’s more, what does it matter?

The better adapted a species is to its environment, the less control evolution has over it. This means that the “ultimate goal” of evolution is to produce a species that perfectly matches its environment. Of course, when it does, the environment usually changes.

The Power of “NO”
by
David Schlecht

The heights of the mountains is a measure of the depths of the valleys. We couldn’t have one without the other. Or, as Kahlil Gibran says:

The selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

If life is nothing but pain or nothing but bliss, then it’s nothing at all since we have nothing to compare it with. A sick and deluded parent that can never accept or appreciate the joy provided by a child or spouse can never make a good person. In fact, it’s is a downright sick and scary person who is always the person incapable of accepting anything or seeing the good in anything.

You’ve probably already guessed, but, yes, I’m referring to the Republican Party. No matter what the majority of Americans do or what Obama proposes, it’s never acceptable, in fact, it’s downright evil according to the Republican Party.

A sick and deluded party that is incapable or refuses to see the good offered by others is a sick party indeed.

If the Republican Party wanted to admit, once in a while, that they were wrong or stupid or criminal and that maybe occasionally the Democrats were right or good or beneficial for America, just once in a while, then we would all find some value in their positions. But, when it is just “no, no, and more no” then it’s nothing. There’s nothing to compare it to and there’s no value in the misinterpretations.

Remember after 9/11, all of America came together and supported Bush. Would the Republicans ever find a reason to back a Democrat? If they can’t support America, then what are they? Do they really belong in American politics?

The last time the Republican Party was this destructive, it was named the Whigs and it went away.

Republicans, I beg you, please take back your party! Kick out the monsters and kick out the extremists and the terrorists and prosecute your criminals. Turn off Fox and your Hate Radio and bring a viable party back to the negotiating tables and to America’s politics. We need two parties at the very least. We need you! Take your party back!

The New Republican Party
by
Dave Speck

Take a step back and look at where we are as a country, today. Torture! Just imagine that for a minute.

We have gone from being the country of the higher moral ground. We used to look down our noses at third world countries and torture centers like the old Soviet Empire, Somalia, or Pakistan because of torture. Now we not only endorse it from the top (George Bush) on down but endlessly condone it.

What has happened to our country and our morals? I’ll tell you what. Republicans. A better question to ask is, “What has Become of the Republican Party?”

It’s so hard to even imagine that an American political party would actively condone torture. The Republican Party is still excusing John Yoo for recommending that we crush the testicles of children in order to torture their parents. Is this still America?

America doesn’t support torture but they are listening to the Republicans tell us all the reasons why we should throw away our morals and just do it. It’s a Republican thing, nothing more. Listen to the Republicans and you would think that, like them, America was nothing but a bunch of ineffective third world thugs that can only get what they want by killing and destroying people.

But we don’t just stop there. The Republican Party is committed to opposing each and every thing that the Democratic Party pursues.

Again, let’s stop and think about that for a moment.

The Republican Party opposes everything that the MAJORITY of Americans want. Remember? America evicted the Republican lies two election cycles in a row and are probably going to abandon them in record numbers in the coming elections as well. And, it’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned. There is no room in American discourse for torture or obstructionism.

If a political party is so far out of step with America and so very stuck in lock step like the Nazi Brown Shirts that they will oppose everything the majority want, they are relegated to the dust bins of history. Good riddance, torturers. You’re not what America stands for!

Minimum Social Safety Net
by
David Schlecht

As discussed in our last post, America’s forefathers supported and wrote into our country’s fundamental documents a basic social safety net to allow Americans to protect themselves and their neighbors from preventable disasters. In fact, the word, “welfare” is included in our country’s constitution, not just once but twice and in very obvious context. Basing a minimum safety net on the clause “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” brings out the obvious points in my previous post.

Let’s go beyond the basics and define what would make for a good list of basic services we want to provide with our tax dollars. These services should be available to the stinkingly rich as well as the desperately poor.

Certainly we need services that ensure the proper functioning of our government. However, spending millions of tax dollars to have the best possible oak and gold crusted court houses is a fool’s investment. Also, paying elected officials more than double the average American wage makes our representatives think they’re not one of “us”. But this is all outside the arena of social programs.

In order for a country to function well and be competitive in the world, we need a freely available and dependable infrastructure. The only way to provide this is through services provided by our taxes. Putting for-profit corporations in charge of ensuring our infrastructure will guarantee that it will not be dependable and probably not be available to everyone. So, what do we mean by infrastructure?

Obviously, we need roads and communications. The idea of toll roads is so obviously wrong it amazes me. If we “need” roads, we all need them. For someone to make a profit because we “need” something is not only immoral but a foolish decision on our part. If we shut down all the roads in America, we would collapse as a nation. Anything that is this important is too important to leave for the corrupt corporations. The same goes for our communications, and this includes Internet. Without a viable phone or Internet system, America would immediately devolve into a third world country, or at the very least, fail to be competitive in the word markets.

Yes, our roads and communications should be controlled by our taxes. What else? As far as infrastructure goes, police and fire protection as well as a military are all important services that should be provided by our taxes and not controlled by a profit-based organization. Other obvious infrastructure services include sanitation, both garbage and sewer services. These are too important to trust to a profit-first organization.

Other than infrastructure, there are numerous services that we must provide to all of us. We already discussed health care. Even though we don’t have it, yet, it is an obvious need. Health care includes medicines. Personally, I’m not too fond of the idea of putting the pharmaceutical companies out of business, but making them competitive is required. The Conservatives passed laws just a few years ago forbidding our Medicare programs from negotiating with the drug companies. Why haven’t we put all those Republican representatives in prison by now?

We obviously need clean water and air. So these should also be something we provide ourselves through our tax dollars. How very foolish for us to trust greedy corporations to provide water to the people.

In order to encourage entrepreneurs to start new endeavors, we need a safety net that catches them if they fail. This is called unemployment and bankruptcy. Though these aren’t typical services, they are important uses of our tax dollars.

What’s the first argument you would expect to hear against adding additional services? The Conservatives are constantly screaming, oh my god, more taxes. Well, yes, more taxes. Let me explain.

We are already paying for these services, whether we know it or not. Only now, we’re paying corporations to provide them, corporations whose primary purpose is to make money for themselves and their stock holders. If we spend the same amount to get these services through a social service, there is no profit motive so there is considerably lower costs. Yes, we pay more in taxes but end up with more money left over from our pay checks at the end of the day. I think we’d all be glad to pay higher taxes if we got more left over from each of our pay checks.

Once we start looking at things, there are still many more services that we really should be providing to ourselves that will become more obvious once we stop reacting to the fear mongering of higher taxes.

Finding the Right Balance
by
David Schlecht

The American Conservatives are working overtime trying to scare America about being socialist. They even go so far as to equate socialism with Communism. Firstly, it’s immoral and really sad to see a political party taking advantage of the ignorance of our fellow Americans. It only takes a few seconds to research the meaning of the two and one realizes that they are not equivalent. Shame on those Conservatives for taking advantage of the less fortunate.

Let’s talk about socialism, here. In simple terms, socialism is when a society unites together to ensure that certain needs are fulfilled. A good example of the dreaded socialism is our local police departments. We combine our tax dollars to ensure that everyone is protected by our socialist police departments. Personally, I like our socialist police departments. It was a good idea.

Our fire departments are socialist, as well. We have all combined our taxes to ensure that the fires will be put out, no matter whose house or whose neighborhood is on fire. Yes, a very good socialist idea, indeed.

Basically, almost everything about the services we collectively provide for each other through our taxes is socialism. And, all this socialism works quite well, until the Republicans get in power and privatize our social programs. Once profit is the primary purpose, the social value is lost.

Nobody really wants a social automobile industry, or computer industry. But, we do all agree that certain needs must be guaranteed, certain needs as defined by the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. A good place to start is “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Is that where we want to draw the line? Or should we do like the Republicans want, and throw away the social programs our forefathers have put in place for us and our country?

Is socialism bad and evil like the Conservatives would like you to believe? Imagine a country without social programs. Somolia comes to mind. That’s the kind of country the Conservatives want us to become: the ultra rich feeding off the poor, sick, and dying. It really makes you want to vote in another Republican, doesn’t it?

So, I think we can all agree that we want some level of socialism in our country, at least we know the country’s founding fathers did. So, how much is the right amount?

Again, getting back to the words of our founding fathers:

• Life
• Liberty
• and the Pursuit of Happiness

Should we have a national health care system? This is so very obvious that it’s the first item on the list. Without a national helath care system, there is no life. Without an education and without our legal systems, there would be no liberty. And, without education, and a national financial system, there is no guarantee of the pursuit of happiness.

Simply put, the bare minimum that our founding fathers wanted for our citizens is:

• National Health Care, available to all (for the slower among us, that means free)
• Police and legal protection, available to all.
• Education, again free to all.

Now there are obviously numerous considerations that our founding fathers didn’t think of. For example 200 years ago, there wasn’t much thought of environmental protections, but without the EPA, today, there is no way to stop the greedy (Conservative-donating) corporations from destroying the world around us.

This short list of social programs that we don’t have contains services provided for free or almost free in all the other industrialized nations. In other words, the minimum requirements as put forth by our founding fathers are provided by all the first-world countries EXCEPT America.

How did this happen? You can thank the Conservatives.

Now, let me be fair. The Republican Party has not always been like this. Only in the post Reagan era have the Corrupt Conservatives been in total control of the Republican party. And, now that America is seeing exactly what the Conservatives have to sell, they’re abandoning the Republican Party in droves.

This is bad.

If we are going to have political parties, we need more than one. But, as we all see, the Republican Party marches in lock-step opposing all the things America’s founding fathers fought and died for.

How do we get the unhealthy conservative bent out of our political discourse? Now that the Democrats are in charge, the corrupt corporate conservatives are working overtime trying to corrupt the Democrats as well and we can guarantee that they will have some level of success, but hopefully, not the kind of success they’ve had with the Republican Party.

It’s time for the Republicans to retake control of their party and it’s time for America to kick out the caustic Conservative memes. Some level of socialism, as envisioned by our forefathers is a good thing. Now we only need to decide how much is enough.

Who Owns our Government?
by
David Schlecht

In recent posts I’ve gone into some detail onto the problems with our existing financial system. As I’ve pointed out, we will never be able to avoid the bubbles and busts without stringent regulation. The lack of regulation directly led to the great depression of the 30s and is the direct cause of today’s financial problems.

Let’s look at today’s disaster. As posted, earlier, the crux of our current disaster is the derivative market. We have numerous home loans bundled up with other loans and sold like stocks. These bundles are then re-bundled and sold off again. By the time the final sale happens, a buyer may be getting bits and pieces of hundreds of mortgage loans, many in default.

The loans, themselves, aren’t the real problem. The real problem is the banks and investors have trillions of dollars tied up in billions of dollars worth of loans.

Think about that for a moment. The main problem isn’t the mortgages going into default, but those mixed and multiplied derivatives.

The cheap and easy way to fix the problem (for today, anyway) is to make the mortgages good by buying them out and negotiating with the owners for terms that the owners will accept. In fact, we could pay off all the bad mortgages for around 800 billion dollars. Our government could buy up the bad loans and negotiate with the borrowers and spend less than we have given to the banks, so far.

Making the foundation of the bubble good, the derivatives problem goes away. Once the bubble is re-inflated, we can reintroduce the regulations that the Republican Free Market Cult has destroyed and get back on track. This, of course, means getting rid of and possibly outlawing derivatives.

If this makes sense, then you’re probably wondering why our government, in all its wisdom, didn’t already think of this.

Well, they did! In fact, they were trying to buy up the mortgages and do just this but the Republicans and the banks were screaming so loud and putting so much money into lobbying Congress, that OUR GOVERNMENT couldn’t do what we needed them to do. Instead, we’ve put trillions of dollars into the banks, and nothing has been fixed.

The stock market is showing signs of rebound, but once one realizes that the root of the problem isn’t fixed, it becomes obvious that we’re spending trillions of dollars to bolster up the banks but the problem won’t go away. The current Free Market Depression will come back with a vengeance by this Fall. By then, we’ll have trillions less to spend where we really need it.

Now, ask yourself, why do the banks get money but the mortgagees are losing their homes? It’s because we are still allowing lobbyists to control our politicians. The only way to resolve this issue is to refuse to vote for any politician, no matter what party, if they accept business donations. Sorry, but that means no more Republican politicians and good bye to many of the Democrats as well, until they come clean.

America’s Coming War With the Right Wing Radicals
by
Dave Speck

Three news reports in the past year bring light upon the dysfunction of the American Conservative Movement. Three times in the past year Conservatives has taken up arms against the scary Liberals. Before that, we had Waco, Oklahoma City, and even Columbine. There are numerous more cases that don’t even show up in the news as Conservative Attacks against America, because the news is afraid to paint it in that light, lest the Right crucify them for it.

Today the Department of Homeland Security warns us that Right Wing Radicals are recruiting our military veterans for the coming war. The greatest internal threat of violence against America is the Conservative party. The Right is going crazy trying to get the DHS to take it all back. Rather than asking their radicals to stop preaching hatred and violence, they’re in full blown “hide the truth” mode.

Now, tell me, how many scary Liberals have attacked Americans because of the political views of the attacker or the victim? Zero! Even the radical groups like Green Peace use peaceful demonstrations.How many Liberal Hate Radio stations are there? Practically none. None successful. What are the most successful Conservative shows? Hate Media. It’s that simple.

Today the Conservative Hate Media is chanting kill, kill, kill, and their mobilized zombies are rushing to the ammo stores to stock up on their Librul Killing Buddies. Ammunition and weapons sales are at an all time high. Why? Obviously it’s not because the Liberals are planning on murdering Conservatives, but rather, the weak-minded followers of the Conservative party are arming themselves for the coming war with Librul Amerika.

The rest of us Americans (yes, the huge majority of us) can complain all we want but the problem won’t go away until Hate Media is silenced. We are way past the point of comparing this to yelling “Fire” in a theater. This Hate Media is already proving to be causing Conservatives to murder their neighbors. Hate Radio and Fox must be silenced.

I’m not for censoring anything that isn’t already against the law. I’m for enforcing the laws that we already have that forbids media from insiting violence.

Will America’s Conservatives recognize this as a problem with their media and put a stop to it? Of course not. Never will happen. The vast majority of the Conservatives would never believe that the problem is with them. Heck, there’s still 20 some percent that think George W Bush was anything but a criminal. Talk about blind alegance to a party platform. Party before Country! The Republican Motto.

What’s With the Thomas Paine Lies?
by
David Schlecht

I’ve seen numerous posts over the years questioning the sickness of unending deceit coming out of the Republican Party. Today is no different. Why would any political party want to lie about the political leanings of one of America’s Founding Fathers?

The new video out pushing the Tea Party features a Thomas Paine impersonator. I just don’t understand why a party would choose one of the more progressive forefathers and make him up to look like he would, in some remote way, support what the Republican Party stands for.

There is no question that the Republican Party relies heavily on the failure of their followers to question their motives, or to even possess a grade school education.

Thomas Paine was for taxing the rich, and ensuring that aristocracies don’t take root in our country. He was all for “stakes” which were his program for scholarships which would be given to the young to allow them to get educated and start businesses, by taxing the rich.

For those who didn’t pay attention in elementary school, the Tea Party was really a revolt against big business, with the name of The Honorable East Indian Trading Company. It was a revolt because this mega-corporation, like Wal-mart, was given unfair tax breaks that threatened to destroy New England’s tea houses. It was a revolt against all the things the Republican Party stands for.

Thomas Paine wrote extensively about building a social safety-net, like Social Security, to protect the people. Check out Rights of Man.

Simply put, Thomas Paine was for all the things that this Tea Party is against. The purpose of this Tea Party is to revolt against taxes on the rich, the same taxes they were paying before Reagan screwed up our country. Thomas Paine was for estate taxes. Yes, those exact taxes the organizers of the Tea Party are opposing.

The billion-dollar families in America have united to create the Tea Party and they’re relying on the ignorance of the Republican followers. How can they expect such stupidity? Well, because they haven’t been let down, yet. Will they this time?

Economies Requiring Growth
by
David Schlecht

We have discussed many of the roadblocks to success that are fundamental to America’s economy. Today we’ll discuss the pending disaster of an economy based on unlimited growth.

Let’s look at Nevada for a prime example of an economy that is crumbling, not only because of the Free Market insanity, but because of a model requiring unending growth.

Most people realize that Nevada is a desert, but you wouldn’t be able to tell by the vacant stare of our Governor Gibbons. As a desert, our communities are limited by available resources, and being a desert, one of the most critical resources is water. So what happens when we have more people than the water supply can support?

Well, of course, the industry lobbyists are saying that we can’t stop constructing new homes and schools and strip malls, so we must force people to conserve more and more.

So, in Nevada, we’re forcing the voters to use less and less water so they can continue to build more and more homes adding to more and more traffic and more and more crime and more and more congestion.

Eventually, there will come a point where you can’t ration the water any more and the population will level off, or more likely, decline as everyone will want to leave the stinking cesspool left behind.

Population growth will come to an end!

Since a large part of our economy is driven by the construction industry, a large part of our economy will falter, as will all the industries relying on that industry, like the many strip malls.

Right now, today, is time to start implementing building moratoriums when we see that our resources are unable to keep pace with population. If we wait, like Nevada, until it’s too late, then population will actually fall, and that will destroy the housing industry and the property values of all those unable to flee the disaster.

Again, this isn’t rocket sience, so why doesn’t Gibbons, or your own governor see this pending disaster and start constraining growth? It’s time you reminded them that you’re watching and paying attention.

Senate Votes to Bankrupt America
by
David Schlecht

Last week our Senate representatives voted 51 to 48 to further reduce taxes on the overly-wealthy, thusly putting our country further in debt. The taxes on the wealthy have been reduced over the past 30 years, just like the last great depression, and we wonder why we’re looking at another great depression. How can our representatives really vote this way? It’s not rocket science.

Here’s a list of who voted against it:

Congratulations to all of them for doing the right thing. Do you see anything missing from this list? That’s right. There’s not a single Republican that voted against this bill. Not a single one. The party that lies to us about fiscal responsibility is at their finest, here, further expanding our debt while paying off their rich contributors. Why does anyone still vote Republican? Obviously if you’re the 1/10 of 1% of the richest greediest scumbags of the country, I can see why you vote that way. The rest of us, there’s just no excuse.

This stupidity couldn’t have passed without a few sick Democrats enabling the Corrupt Conservatives.Who were these sickos? They should be removed from office, TODAY! Here’s the list:

Now, I also see Nevada’s Ensing voting for this, but then there’s never been any question who Ensing thinks he is supposed to represent, and it certainly isn’t the Nevada public.

Had enough Conservative Corruption yet? It’s time to weed out the corruption, Democrats and Republicans, alike.

The True Cost of Doing Business
by
David Schlecht

While walking around our neighborhood, today, I noticed a business driving around tossing out little plastic packets of coupons, leaving them in the gutters, on the sidewalks, in our driveways, on our lawns, in our flowerbeds, and who know where else. In a “reasonable” society, this would be fined as littering. In our world, this is considered “doing business”.

This particular business has arranged to have the neighbors and the tax payers pay to puck up the by-product or the cost of doing business. What a deal. If you and I decided we could save a couple bucks throwing our trash on the businesses properties and driveways and homes, we would be hauled off to jail, so why can they get away with it?

This is only one very simple example of businesses sloughing off the cost of doing business onto society. In the case of this particular business model, the tax structure for the business must include the cost of cleaning up after the business, or better yet, requiring that the business clean up after itself. They should also be required to reimburse the society for the time and cost they put into the cleanup process. Sure, it’s only a couple dollars per packet, but it would better define the success of the business model if they had to clean up after themselves.

We can take this example to the next level. There was a gravel pit up the road where a construction company was mining out gravel for doing some nearby road work. Now that the road work is done, the gravel mine is abandoned and the damage from the strip mining gapes like an open wound at the drivers who pass by, on the newly repaired roadway. The construction business, like any mining operation is causing damage to the environment that they should be repairing. First off, the businesses should be required to repair the damage they do and the tax structure should be set up so that regulation of these repairs is paid by the business, not the rest of society.

Let’s look at this topic from a higher perspective. All businesses should be required to retain the environment in a pristine condition. Costs to the environment must be taxed to the businesses, and those taxes must be used to restore from the damage. Where else does society pay for the cost of doing business? Let’s list just a few.

1. Regulatory agencies for policing the businesses
2. Infrastructure for providing access and services in and out of the business
3. Legal infrastructure for providing a means of redressing grievances with and between businesses. This, of course means the cost of police services, fire services, legal services, laws, courts and such.
4. Medical services to those affected by the businesses. In the case of nuclear power plants, surrounding neighborhoods pay for centuries after a nuclear power plant fails. This also includes the cost of medical services to heal the millions who become sick each year from the sale and burning of gasoline, ethanol, coal and other fuels.
5. The cost of cleaning all the carbon out of the environment.

This short list obviously only addresses a small fraction of the costs that businesses should bear but that are pushed off on society instead.

Why do we let this happen? If  businesses can’t remain profitable while cleaning up after themselves, they shouldn’t be in business. It’s that simple.

Now that we’re in the process of cleaning up our financial system, maybe it’s time we started requring businesses to pay their won costs of doing business.

Biden Appeals to G20 Protesters
by
David Schlecht

Yesterday, America’s Vice President, the representative of the free world, appealed for calm and patience while the G20 “tackle the economic crisis.”

Why are our representatives (notice I didn’t say leaders) so ignorant to the fact that the G20 is an indication of the problem? The G20 is not the solution. The solution is to enable labor and fix the working conditions of the people of the Earth — all the people. The G20 get together to figure out how to make industry more profitable and this comes at the expense of labor and at the expense of the living conditions of the people of the Earth.

Why don’t our representatives realize this? Because big business has their ear, but the rest of us just quietly work harder and harder increasing our nation’s Gross Domestic Product while letting the greedy businesses take more and more of the profit. It has to stop. This, Mr. Biden, is the problem. The G20 is the problem.

Make the G20 more like the Labor20 and things will improve overnight and the people will quite demonstrating and rioting.

More Fun With Our Financial Meltdown
by
David Schlecht

The latest word from our “Masters of the Universe” running our banks into the ground is that only they can fix this since the rest of us are too stoopid.

Well, I have one thing to say to these “masters”. Hello? We stupid folks aren’t the ones who caused this. We really shouldn’t be relying on your crooks to fix it.

It’s plainly obvious by now that the big cause of all this mess is that they spent over six BILLION dollars over the past 10 years to bribe our representatives into removing the safeguards that our grandparents put in place to save us from another Great Depression. It really is time for us to begin criminal investigations into what went on and how this happened. Obviously paying this kind of money to lobby our government so they can make hundreds of billions of dollars while we tax payrers pick up the pieces is not just morally wrong but is most likely criminal on many counts.

Here’s a great interview by Rachel Maddow regarding this. You’ll want to watch it.

More Examples of Our Broken Financial System
by
David Schlecht

My last post on the three big problems with our financial system addressed major issues that are realm of government policy. But, there are many other broken pieces of our financials. We will look at a few that are more within our control,  yet we let them get out of control.

1. Do you look at the stock market or the Dow Jones or Nasdaq to get a feel for how the economy is doing? If so, you’re brainwashed like the vast majority of us. If you’ve been paying attention, you have noticed that usually when the unemployment rate goes up, so do the stock markets. Why? Well, obviously, the economy being good for the greedy corporations means that they can get cheaper labor. So, when unemployment goes up, it’s better for the greedy. It’s not a better economy for the huge majority of Americans. In fact, usually as the stock market goes up, the health of the economy goes down.How can this be? Again, let me explain that the health of the economy isn’t the health of the 1/10 of 1% of Americans who are multi-millionaires. It’s the health of the remaining 99.9% of us that matters. Someone has been lying to us telling us that stocks are the yardstick by which we measure the economy.  What really matters to Americans (yes the 99.9% of us) is how labor is doing.
2. When was the last time you read about how labor was doing? It’s been years since I’ve seen a “Labor” section in any newspaper. Let’s see, 99.9% of us care more about labor than stocks but newspapers don’t even have labor sections any more. But they all have Business section. Is there any question why we’ve lost touch with what matters to America?
3. Unemployment figures don’t even give us a decent yardstick of measuring the economy that matters to America. Our Conservative politicians, Republicans and Democrats, alike, have been lying to us about our employment numbers. We’re looking at 11% unemployment in Nevada. But that’s not a real number. The number of homeless has skyrocketed. These are people no longer on the unemployment roles. What good is a number that doesn’t include unemployed people?The numbers are also jacked around to show military personnel as employed. Actually, getting paid to get shot at isn’t a living. Why would presidents mess with the numbers and hide the real truths from us? Because it makes them look good. We need to get outraged when we catch our representatives messing with the figures that we need in order to evaluate the health of our economy.

Start asking for a Labor secrion in your newspapers, the dead-tree and the online versions. Start demanding that we get real numbers from our government. Get outraged when they start to get slimy and start cooking the books.

The Two Santa Clause Theory
by
Dave Speck

Regardless of which party you are affiliated with or whether you think of yourself as a conservative or liberal or libertarian, there are two very important websites you should visit. It explains so very much about our current political climate and how we can help get America back on track.

The first one is a Wikipedia page on Jude Wanniski with a reference to the Two Santa Clause Theory. The second is a post at CommonDreams.org with the title The Two Santa Clauses.

It’s all so obvious in hindsight.

Reinventing America’s Economy
by
David Schlecht

We’ve been hearing a lot lately of the need to reinvent our economy. Our financial system is so broken that we can’t prevent it from melting down multiple times in each century. This essay investigates some areas where we can greatly improve our world by reinventing America’s financial structure.

We start with a short investigation of exactly what is causing this recurring nightmare that plunges so many of us into poverty every few decades. Without a firm understanding of the causes of the disaster, there’s no way to fix it. There is no way for me to say this without sounding like I’m politically biased but this is a fact obvious to anyone paying attention. The Conservatives around the world are directly responsible for this disaster just like they were for the last Republican Great Depression.

During the depression of the 1930s, we, the people put numerous safeguards in place to protect us from another disaster. We put many rules in place to control greed in our financial markets. We passed laws to prevent businesses from getting too big to fail. If these safeguards were still followed, today, we would not have this disaster. It’s as plain and simple as that. The people forcing through the failed policies around the world are all chanting “Free Market, Free Market”. Well, the greedy Free Market is what we’re looking at having to bail out. The banks are too big to let fail, so here we are, again, bailing them out.

And, here we are, again, bailing out the autmobile industry. We stopped enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act which saves us from having businesses too big to fail. The last monopoly to get cleaned up was Ma Bell. Since that time, the Free Market Advocates have been getting their way and stripping us all of the safeguards our grandparents put in place to save us.

We’ve already addressed two of the major causes of this disaster, 1) Too Big to Fail Businesses, and 2) Lack of or refusal to enforce safeguards to control the greedy. The third leg of this stool is The Federal Reserve.

Unknown to most people, the Federal Reserve is niether federal nor does it have any reserves. Like “The Clean Air Act” or “The Healthy Forest Act”, the name is only there to confuse the unsuspecting and the gullible. This is a privately owned bank that we have put in charge of managing our country’s money supply. As I said, there are no reserves, so the Federal Reserve controls the money by providing credit.

America didn’t always have a Federal Reserve. It wasa created as a national bank to help control the flow of credit. However, it has been privatized and is now a for-profit bank with stockholders. Their responsibility is now to the stockholders, not to America, and many of the stockholders aren’t even American. Not only is the Federal Reserve a for-profit bank, but all the banks and gambling houses (aka investment houses) are now for-profit. This means that they make decision, not based on what’s best for America, but what’s best in the short term for their shareholders and their CEOs.

Now we know what three of the major causes of this disaster are, so let’s look at how to clean them up for good. Obviously we can’t rely on just safeguards, because our grandchildren will abandon our safeguards just like we abandoned the safeguards our grandparent put in place. We have to fundamentally change the structure of our economy.

#1. Too Big to Fail: Since we can’t rely on our politicians to enforce the safeguards against Too Big Businesses, we need to create an agency to monitor monopolies. We also need to put laws in place that let competetors initiate monopoly investigations against monopolistic competetors in the hopes of splitting them up.

#2. Free Market Greed and Foolishness: Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac were both initially government lending institutions. They have since been privatized. As it alwasy happens when government functions are sold to the greedy, they get out of hand and end up, well, like Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Greed should be frowned upon, not rewarded. If greedy politicians want to privatize our government services, they should be unable to vote on any legislation in which they have received any money or gifts, either directly or via Political Action Comittees. Furthremore, any privatization must require a 2/3 vote in both the House and Senate.

Big business currently owns our government. There’s no simpler way to put it. It costs $20,000 per day for a politician to run for office because of the billions of dollars that are spent by greedy big businesses to buy our representatives. We need to take the money out of politics. We need immediate finance reform that prevents anyone from spending personal money on elections. This means all elections must be federally funded.It’s the only way to get the greedy businesses out of our government. Furthermore, we need to revise many of our corporate laws and remove the rights of personhood from our corporations. Corporations do not need and should not have the right of free speech. Corporations should not be allowed to own or invest in other businesses and corporations, all corporations should have “serving the public interest” as their fundamental purpose, and corporations should have a maximum life span after which they are shut down and sold off.

#3. Corrupt Banking Industry: First, federalize the Federal Reserve. Our nation’s credit should not be managed by greed and profit. For that matter, buy back Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and run them as the services they were intended to be. Secondly, every state should have a state-owned and state-run bank that provides credit for the people and businesses of the state.

There are, of course, many more things that need immediate attention, but these three are, in my opinion, three of the biggest issues facing us today.

The Liberal Lie Machine
by
Dave Speck

Let’s imagine for a minute that there are three classes in America, the elite, the working class elite, and the working poor. Just imagine that there is one working poor, and two multi-millionaire elite class. The numbers sort out to thousands of elite for each poor worker. This counts most of the lower and middle management as elite. I know. It sounds bazaar, but stick with me.

Now the greatly under represented poor decide they want to change the mostly successful economy, after all, the vast majority of Americans are now ultra rich. Well, they can’t explain to the huge successful majority that the system doesn’t work because obviously it does. They can’t express that everyone should just be poor and abandon all the things that are working for the vast majority.

So, what do the Liberal Poor do? Well, of course, they need to start a liberal lie campaign to convince all the rich people how much they hate being rich and how much they wish they were poor. It goes without saying that it would have to be a very successful media campaign and it would take many years to finally get people changing, but marketing campaigns have done harder sells than this. The trick would be to divide and conquer. Start by indoctrinating the rich larvae in schools explaining how miserable it must be for their parents to be so happy all the time.

The important point to note is that this campaign will only work if they can lie well enough and long enough and loud enough to finally get people wanting to change, to despise and abandon their success.

Alright, now, let’s reverse the roles. Let’s say the numbers are the real numbers and there are thousands of working middle class and poor for each one ultra rich CEO. For the most part, the system was working as the middle class was growing each year and the number in poverty diminishing, as it was before Reagan. Obviously, if more people are getting a couple more dollars in their pay checks, the CEOs must be having to share their success with the workers making them rich.

Okay, now, how will the ultra rich manage to convince everybody that the system isn’t working? Obviously it is, since the vast majority of people are dong better with each passing year. It would require a major lie campaign, just like the earlier scenario. You have to tell the people that “the government isn’t working”, even though it is and everything is getting better. The lie campaign would have to express that everyone should have the same greedy morals and goals as the richest of the elite, and that nobody should ever want to spend tax dollars to help each other.

Ask yourself, now, what reason would the liberal majority want for creating a lie campaign against the rich? There are no reasons, none, period. If the vast majority are doing better, they don’t need to lie about anything. There’s no incentive to lie, just let things take their course.

Imagine now, what a lie campaign would look like sponsored by the ultra rich minority. There would be plenty of dollars to spend on buying up radio stations and cable news stations and pumping out the endless lies. There would be constant effort to get more representatives-of-the-rich in teaching positions. There would be plenty of money spent on “think tanks” that figure out how to spread the lies and to make them look more like truth to the unsuspecting. In our current climate, what need is there for the workers to fund think tanks? The truth is obvious. It doesn’t need to be dressed up like a pig.

This may seem like a nightmare, but it’s the world we find ourselves in, today. The ultra rich are funding “think tanks” that are designed to dress up the pig and to find ways to fund more media, like Fox and Conservative Hate Radio. And the sad part is that they are winning the war. More and more unsuspecting are succumbing to the aggressive media, lie campaign every year.

Without the lie campaign, we wouldn’t have abandoned the safeguards that were put in place after the last great depression to save us from suffering another. Without the lie campaign, we wouldn’t be acquiring the national greed-is-good mantra of the greedy rich. Take a moment and Google the Conservative Think Tanks and you’ll see that they’re funded by the ultra rich. Ever wonder why? Check it out:

• The Heritage Foundation
• The Cato Institute
• National Center for Public Policy Research
• The Manhattan Institute
• American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

The Republican Corporate Media
by
Dave Speck

I recently took a road trip across the country and listened to as much AM talk radio as my stereo could pick up and here’s what I found. You can go from the east coast to the west coast and pick up vile Republican talk radio in every city along the way but can only hear Liberal talk radio in about five percent of the cities.

Considering that Conservative Talk Radio lost money hand over fist for the fist decade, and many of the most vile broadcasters are still losing money hand over fist, and considering that Liberal talk radio is very profitable where it’s broadcast, it makes me wonder why.

Obviously it’s the damned Liberal Media out to get, us by looking like it’s not really the Liberal Media that’s the problem.

Funny how the “really intelligent Republicans” still believe the “Liberal Media” lie. It doesn’t take much to be a Republican. Just like believing the rest of the Republican lies like Global Warming Denial, WMDs found in Irak, and the rest of the “Intelligent Republican” memes.

So, America, we all know what’s wrong. Now, how do we fix it? I’m not much on censoring the stupidity, but there has to be some sort of reason on our public air waves or the really stupid will continue to be stupeed and vote stupid and before we know it, we’ll have another 8 years of another Bush.

Write your newspaper and complain when you see stupid biases and write your TV when you see stupid, and write your representatives and say you want our media fixed RIGHT NOW!

Stay Involved
by
Dave Speck

You can’t help but be impressed, watching the news, today, to see that the adults are back in charge.

Obama goes to Canada and gets cheered and applauded and appreciated, where Bush was protested.

Clinton goes to Asia and America is, again, revered and respected. No more Bush protests there, either.

Yes, America, the Republican politicians poisoning our country have stepped aside, begrudgingly, and let the adults take control.

Does it feel good?

Congratulations, America.

Now you want to see some meaningful changes in our country? Then stay involved. Write your representatives about everything that matters, write to your local newspapers and TV stations. Stay involved. And, remember to contribute, no matter how small, to organizations that make a different. May I suggest MoveOn? Freedom From Religion Foundation? People for the American Way?

Stay Involved.

What Part Taxes Play in the Recovery
by
David Schlecht

Let me preface this with a challenge. I’ve voted for my share of Republican candidates so don’t mistake this challenge as a partisan rant. A friend of mine recently asked me to tell him a single piece of legislation that the Republican Party has introduced and passed in Congress, that help the average voter. I was woefully unable to come up with even a single one. I must defer to our trusty readers for your expertise. Can you name a single piece of legislation benefiting the average American submitted and passed by the Republicans?

Now to our topic. What role will taxes play in the recovery process and what role should they play? Now that the foolhearty Conservative Economic joke has exploded in our faces, it’s time for us all to realize what went wrong so we can fix it and ensure it never happens again, at least not until the next Republican Great Depression.

Before JFK, the financial elitists were charged a 90% tax on anything over 3 million dollars. Over time, slimeballs in Congress passed bill after bill that allowed their rich buddies to get around the taxes. After enough time, the 90% was more like 70% actually getting paid. When JFK closed the loopholes (well, it wasn’t really JFK as he was assassinated before he could sign the law) he explained to the American people that this was actually a tax increase on the swine (my words, not his) bribing our representatives and the tax cut from 90% to 74% actually increased tax revenues.

Then comes along the next Republican president to attack the American economy, Reagan. He dropped the top marginal tax rate on those sickeningly rich scumbags trying to corrupt our government from 74% to 35%, while the Republicans in Congress were poking more and more loopholes in the laws JFK closed up. This had the short-term effect of making the economy look good but within a year we had Reagan’s first recession. And just a few years later, we had the second Reagan recession, the Savings and Loans disaster.

You may be wondering why taxes have anything to do with the economy and recessions. If you are, read the earlier posts describing how these interact. In short, taking spending money away from the government takes income away from government workers and the needy and thereby takes it out of the economy. Giving more money to the uber-rich puts more money in risky speculation. What follows are bubbles and crashes. On top of that, the Republicans were busy destroying the rules put in place to get us out of the past Republican Great Depression. The S&Ls were free to speculate and with billions in slush money from the Republican sponsors, the industry self-destructed.

Along comes Bush, Clinton, and Bush. I cringe at grouping Clinton in with the Party of the Uber-Rich, but he followed the same stupid ideals, reducing the size of government further, reducing the services to the needy, and removing safeguards on the risky investments. All this made us ripe for the next Republican Great Depression. By now, Bush Junior had reduced the average tax on the wealthy corporations to less than 7%, while the middle class workers (the actual financial engine) were paying as much as 35% and paying Alternative Minimum Tax on top of that.

The families of the 50s and 60s had almost 50% of their budgets available for discretionary spending, with a single bread winner. Today, the middle class family spends less than 25% on discretionary spending. The middle class pays more for taxes, more for health care, more for housing, and now needs two cars because both parents must work.

It’s simple. With less spendable money in the hands of the middle class, less money goes into the economy. The next step is to start relying on credit. The middle class went into hawk, up to their eyeballs. Rake up the credit cards, rake up the mortgage, charge your groceries when you can’t make ends meet.

Eventually, the middle class can no longer live off credit and spending grinds to a halt. That’s were we are today. All because of taxes and relaxed regulations.

Armed with this knowledge, how do we devise a solution to this mess? Obviously going back to the 90% tax rate for anything over 3 million dollars is a good start. Those who benefit the most from our country should pay the most back into it. Those who own Wall Marts and make billions of dollars while their workers go hungry must repay those stolen dollars back to society. It’s easy and it’s fair.

But, leveling the playing field by taxing the rich isn’t enough in iteself. Higher taxes on the rich will automatically translate to more money for the workers, barring the Republican generated loopholes. But this is still the trickle-down approach and the Conservatives have proven to us that this approach doesn’t work. The higher taxes on the sickeningly rich must be ballanced with a higher average wage for the workers, yes the engine of the economy. Our minimum wage must be increased to above the poverty level. A good start is $30,000 per year. A rising tide lifts all boats and this will translate to better compensation for all workers and will mean a stronger economic engine.

Sure, the billionaires will still make more money than a normal person can spend, but they will just have to deal with it.

I can almost hear the Conservatives groaning in disbelief. “What? You mean tax the rich? It’ll kill any incentive to make money!”

What are they thinking? Let me ask you. Would you be happy to invent something to make $3,000,000.00? This would actually increase innovation because there would be more people able to be innovators rather then working two and three jobs at below poverty wages.

So, how do we get there from here? We can’t just change the tax laws overnight. And, we can’t continue to borrow the money to pay for this recovery. We need to pay as we go. We need to implement a change as quickly as possible. This means a two-pronged approach. The first approach is the re-implement the Paris Hilton tax. There’s no reason for any estate to carry billions of dollars from one generation to the next to the next while others starve. The income from insurance policies and from inheritance should be taxed at the same rates as any other income. Anything over three million dollars get taxed at 90%.  Just by turning back on the estate taxes, we will have enough tax money to pay this recovery package as we go. During the coming 5 years we can gradually re-implement the 90% tax on anything over three million dollars.

One more big shot in the arm is to open up Medicare to all Americans. If we can buy better insurance through Medicare than we can get by paying billions of dollars to the CEO’s of the big insurance companies, the businesses will have more money to pay for wages and other benefits, or they can pay for the 90% tax if they prefer.