Just Say Why

Where is All the Money Going?
by
David Schlecht

We see the nation’s Gross Domestic Product go up almost every year. This is an indication in the increase in wealth of the country. That’s how much new product and services we’re creating and selling.

That’s a lot more money each year. So you and I should be seeing our paychecks go up a whole lot every year since we should be getting a fair share of the increased profits.

But our wages are actually going down, especially when compared to our cost of living.

So, where is all this extra money going?

It’s all going to just 100 people, who are greedily hoarding the money while the rest of the country gets poorer. Hardly seems right, does it?

A small select few, just 100 people, received 241 billion dollars more. There’s where the increase in our country’s wealth went.

Well? What are you going to do about it? Are you going call your representative right now, today, and say you’re mad as hell and you’re not going to take this anymore?

Good. Call them today, tomorrow and every day until they start fixing this mess. I will be, too.

Fiscal Farce Avoided
by
David Schlecht

I refuse to call it the Fiscal Cliff because that’s just the Republican party’s effort to turn this into a crisis so they can hammer away at America’s social safety net.

So we avoided the fiscal disaster they were so warning us about. But, it didn’t get averted on the 31st and the world kept spinning didn’t it? It wasn’t a cliff at all, now was it?

So, now that it’s been avoided, what is next? Here’s what we can now expect.

The Republican party will use each and every possible excuse to take the economy hostage again. We will see this come up time and again and each time the Republican will try to strip away a little more of America’s core values, you know, the values of caring for one another.

At a time when we need to start demanding that the government spend more money to get us out of this Republican great depression, the Republicans want to cut spending. Does that seem backwards to anyone else?

So, expect more hostage taking.

Expect more demands to cut government.

Expect more demands to cut regulations, and let more people die.

The rich, the real rich, you know, the ones making more than a million dollars a year, well, they aren’t paying any more in taxes. They don’t pay payroll taxes because they take their income as capital gains. In fact, they don’t even pay tax on the income until they actually sell their stocks. And when they do, they’ll still be paying half the tax rate (20%) that the highest workers pay (39%).

The real workers will be paying an additional 2% in Social Security tax but the wealthy will be paying basically nothing for the social safety net.

Those selling multi-million dollar mansions and making more than a quarter million dollars in pure profit will have to pay a couple dollars in Obamacare tax.

To the dismay of the Republicans, the unemployed will get to continue to eat, grandma won’t be thrown under the bus, and the handicapped will not be left to die on park benches.

But, it’s not over. The Republicans will be back in two months demanding more cuts in the American way of life.

We are the richest country in the world and the Republicans are telling us we can’t afford to feed our starving poor. Shame on them.

Are We Better Off Than 4 Years Ago?
Dave Speck

I know we’ve all heard the Republican party saying we’re so much worse off with Obama and the Republican voters conveniently forget that we were on the brink of another depression thanks to Bush. But, here are the headlines from just four short years ago. You know, the Republican era. My how things have changed!

STOCK SHOCK FELT ROUND THE WORLD. Gets ‘nasty’ as Lehman tanks, Merrill vanishes, AIG wobbles [New York Daily News, September 16, 2008]

Depression Coming? Boil Some Beans; Ladies Who Quilt Give Tips On Surviving Tough Times [Albuquerque Journal, September 21, 2008]

One day on the brink On Wednesday, it seemed U.S. economy might collapse [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 21, 2008]

‘Great Depression’ closer than U.S. admits, report finds [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 27, 2008]

Will Bush become the new Hoover? [Politico, September 19, 2008]

Developers bend under housing meltdown [Colorado Springs Gazette, September 27, 2008]

Depression seen possible [Florida News-Press, September 27, 2008]

Wall Street Meltdown Continues [CNN, September 17, 2008]

Is It Really the Next ‘Great Depression’? [NPR, September 19, 2008]

Behind Closed Doors, Warnings of Calamity [The New York Times, September 20, 2008]

What are the Commons?
by
David Schlecht

We’ve posted many times regarding the importance of protecting our commons. Check out some of our previous posts, such as,

• The Ponzi Scheme of Commons Exploitation,
• The Commons and the Resources,
• Wake Up America, It’s Almost Too Late,
• What are the Commons and why should we care?,

There’s also a good web resource that you should check out that has a worthwhile perspective on the commons.

Reading any of the above links will give you a good grasp on the commons. But, in a nutshell,

1. General Commons: The Commons are those things that we all hold in common, such as our country, our clean air, clean water, our resources like minerals and oil, our soil, our common needs such as health care, and our common defense.
2. Common Wealth: Of these commons, some are assets, such as our soil and our minerals, some are liabilities, such as our government and our health care, and some are neutral, such as our military. Of course, different ways of looking at each common may put the common in a different category, such as defense is also a liability as it will cost us unending investment to maintain, and a country and our government is an asset but will also cost us money. Any common that is viewed from the perspective of an asset is considered a common wealth.

When a logging company harvests the lumber off our land, they are taking our commons and making a profit from them. It is morally right that the profits should be used to repay the people for the loss of their common wealth. The same goes for all our common wealth. Oil companies are not just stealing the oil that is part of the common wealth, but they are stealing the oil from our future generations. Morally, they need to be reimbursing us for the stripping of our wealth and when they don’t, they’re stealing from us.

When a company flushes toxins and pollution in our air, they need to be reimbursing us for the reduced value of our breathing air.

Our common wealth can be divided into renewable and non-renewable commons. Renewable common wealth, such as lumber, is still costing you and me because of the depletion of the nutrients in the soil. If the logging company renews the forests to their original health and renew the soil, then they’ve repaid the common wealth. Anything less is a “taking” that should be paid for.

We have to put a stop to the plunder and pillage of our common wealth and the commons of future generations and we have to stop today. Every day we procrastinate is more value lost that will never be repaid by the companies stealing our commons.

Enough with the Austerity Already
by
David Schlecht

Why are we still struggling with this Republican Great Recession five years afterwards? Even the Republican Great Depression of the 30s didn’t take this long to turn around, so why is this one?

If you look at your history books, you’ll see that the Republican austerity policies were soundly rebuked within three years and Hoover was gone with them. Unfortunately, now, we are still clinging to the promises of austerity. In fact, the entire world is experimenting with the dangerous drugs of austerity and the whole world is suffering.

In fact, there has never been a country that has successfully cut its way to prosperity. The only way to get this log jam freed up is to start taxing the rich like we did at the end of the last Great Depression, you know, 90%, and start spending on lots and lots of work programs.

And, this country drastically needs an investment in our infrastructure. There is no better marriage of needs and solutions than to rebuild our crumbling country and start investing in our future generations by fixing our education system.

Post-Industrial America
by
David Schlecht

In a previous post, I expanded on the value-producing aspect of manufacturing. This discussion explains why America needs a manufacturing industry.

But, what happens when the society becomes so wealthy that they no longer need to or are no longer inclined to continue purchasing? They still have the money and want to do something with it, but how many boats do you buy before you get bored buying boats?

So, along comes the service sector to give the buyers something new to buy. I don’t want another boat, I want someone to mow my lawn so I can enjoy the boat I already have. I want to go out to a nice restaurant, I want to see a play, I just have to go see the latest comedy or magic show…

In this case, the service industry is a symbiotic parasite on the society in that it gives back in return for what it takes. It serves a purpose but it also drains valuable resources from the society.  When you no longer have a manufacturing industry, there is no longer any symbiosis and the parasitic service industry begins to impoverish the society.

This is, of course, all academic, since America is not anywhere near the point where we no longer need anything. America needs plenty. Have you seen the condition of our roads? Or Bridges? Our Internet? Our cell phone infrastructure? We need plenty of manufactured products.

As long as we’re manufacturing what we need and have a little left over to export, then our society remains strong. When we no longer manufacture, then eventually there will be no one left to buy the services from the service industry.

I suppose we’ve all heard the argument that making hamburgers at the local fastfood shop is adding value to the meat so it’s really manufacturing.

This is an awfully weak argument but we can’t dismiss it out of hand. There is some value, but the value is lost the moment the product is consumed. This stems from the old argument of “guns and butter”. Paying for butter is a short-lived investment, but buying guns gives us the value of the weapon for years to come. This was Reagan’s argument for spending money on Star Wars and not Welfare.

The problem here is that the guns, or bombs will eventually be used and will be gone. In a war, it’s amazing just how fast these inventories can disappear, how fast the wealth can disappear.

America needs to get back to building things that last.

Eve of Destruction

Matthew K.

If you’ve spent any time looking back to see what caused the last great depression of the 1930s, you will see that it was the drop in taxes, especially on the wealthy, that triggered the depression. A lack of financial oversight and foolishly low taxes.

We put regulations in place and raised the tax on the wealthy to 90% and we were good for almost a century.

Now, we’ve blown up the regulations and the Republicans have lowered taxes on the rich and guess what.

The lousy part is that even the Democrats in Congress are sniffing glue. It’s not just for Republicans any more. Harry Reid says we need to cut more programs to balance the budget.

Hello Hoover!

It didn’t work back then and it was thinking like this that caused the depression. We need to put a stop to this today. Tomorrow will be too late.

Call your congressmen and the White House (202.456.1111) and tell them you don’t want anything but a clean bill to increase the dept limit. After that, we can take a moment to read our history books and see what caused the depression and what stopped it.

No more slashing government spending until we’re out of this hole.

Call them now. Call them tomorrow and call them every day until they start putting our tax dollars into stimulus programs rather than in the pockets of the rich.

Call today!

What Entitlements
by
Captain Jack

We hear in the press constantly telling us about how bad it is for people to feel entitled to government benefits. Well, that’s not really correct, we’re fed a constant supply of propaganda how entitlements for the poor and middle class are bad but the rich are entitled.

For example, we’re told our whole lives how it’s bad to be on Welfare. It’s bad to be on Unemployment Benefits, it’s bad to be sucking off the system by taking Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid.

Now we’re being told it’s bad to expect the EPA to be protecting our environment or it’s bad for the Labor Relations board to be protecting labor or how it’s bad for the FDA to be protecting us from poisonous drugs or food. We should just stop feeling so entitled.

We shouldn’t feel entitled to a free press, like NPR or PBS so let’s stop funding them and lets shut them down, we shouldn’t have people entitled to get help registering to vote, so let’s shutdown ACORN.

The list goes on endlessly. Every effort we the people put into getting benefits for our tax dollars, the billionaires put more effort into convincing us how we’re not entitled to expect anything for our tax dollars.

But, you never hear the millionaire news casters on the billion dollar news organizations telling us how they’re not entitled to the benefits they get from OUR tax dollars. You never hear the oil industry like the Koch brothers telling us how they’re not entitled to billions of dollars in tax give aways. Remember? Exxon paid noting in American taxes and even got millions of dollars back in a tax refund last year because of the welfare for the wealthy.

You never hear the billion dollar assembly line farm industry saying how they’re not entitled to billions of dollars in farm subsidies. I guess welfare for the rich is okay but we little people shouldn’t be ENTITLED to anything from our tax dollars.

The sad part is that we believe this propaganda. We’re letting them get away with stealing from us.

It’s time we got back to realizing that WE ARE ENTITLED!

We’re entitled to a decent wage. We’re entitled to unionize. We’re entitled to expect to a fair share of the profits from our labors. All our country’s profits are going to the billionaires. Welfare for the billionaires.

We’re entitled to expect our government to represent us and not the multinational corporations. We’re entitled to expect the rich to pay their fair share.

We’re entitled to expect to get some retirement money back from the Social Security we’ve been paying into our whole lives. We’re entitled to unemployment check when we’re unemployed after paying into it our whole lives. No more welfare for the wealthy.

We are entitled.