Saturday, April 30, 2011
Raise the Debt Ceiling Now
Right now I feel that there are only two people in Washington who have my best interests at heart, as a middle class citizen -- Elizabeth Warren and Ben Bernanke.
The fact that big business is so opposed to Elizabeth Warren indicates to me that she must be doing something right for average citizens. Normally, Ben Bernanke, as the head of the Fed would be the tool of big business interests, but I think he is genuinely concerned about average people, too. His low interest rates and QE2 are boons to big business, especially big banks, but they are the only tool he has. I think he really is trying to pursue policies that trickle down to ordinary people, even if most of the benefits go to big banks and industries.
If Congress were serious, it would raise the debt ceiling now, if only by a small amount. The fact that it is playing chicken with the debt ceiling indicates that it does not have the best interests of the United States at heart. Failure to put the full faith and credit of the United States behind our bonds will mean higher interest rates for everybody and probably a return to a deep recession. Conservatives, playing the hand of big business and big banks, will use the crisis to get spending cuts without tax increases, generally hurting average people, and particularly benefiting the very rich.
To reduce the problem with the national debt and the fiscal deficit, I would propose to cut all Federal salaries by 10 percent (including yours) and all Federal pensions (including mine) by 10 percent. Perhaps you could cut all Social Security pensions by 10% above a certain level, say $1,500 per month. For Medicare and Medicaid, perhaps you could cut payments by 10% for all procedures that cost more than $1,500.
I would propose removing the mortgage interest deduction as a start for raising tax revenues. This deduction had a very perverse effect during the housing crisis. Before sub-prime mortgages, when people still had to make a large down payment, the deduction was not so bad. But with no down payment and mortgages allowing interest-only payments for the first few years, buyers basically became renters, who are now walking away from their homes. Real renters got no deduction, but sub-prime buyers had a big Federal subsidy. It was not fair, and it encouraged an unsustainable housing bubble. It's bad policy which creates economic dislocation. Get rid of it. You could start off limiting the deduction to $10,000, and then reduce it $1,000 per year.
I don't really expect anything to happen. This government is dysfunctional. I lived in Brazil for several years as an American diplomat during its bad years, and saw people who wallpapered some rooms with the old Cruzeiro currency. That's where the dollar is heading. Brazil shows that you can recover from that, but only if you get serious. The US is not serious, yet. People used to say that Brazil was not a serious country. Now that epithet applies to the United States. After the game of chicken we just played on shutting the government down, the new game of chicken on the debt ceiling, and the decision during the Congressional lame-duck session not to raise taxes on anyone, especially the very rich, I have become one of those in the recent poll who has a very dark view of the American economy and even of America in general. As a Vietnam veteran, a retired Foreign Service officer, and a former attorney for the Veterans Administration, totalling nearly 30 years of government service, I am very disappointed in where the US is heading.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
People Who Walk Away from Their Houses
Friday, April 22, 2011
MTCR 2011 Meeting
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Libya and Israel
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
What About the Budget Deficit and the National Debt?
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Wealth Distribution in America
The shift in wealth and income in America is not as great as I had thought, but it's significant. I like graphs, so here's one from the study:
It shows the current distribution of wealth between the top 1% and the lower 99% as about the same as 1920. It got worse in 1930, probably as a result of the Depression, and then went up considerably to 1950, probably as a result of recovery from the Depression and World War II. One effect of both factors was that the government virtually took control of the economy during that period -- first to help prevent poor people from starving and going homeless, and later to devote all productive resources to the war effort. Then there was a big surge in the 1960s and 70s, probably as a result of the government's war on poverty and civil rights efforts. The distribution started getting worse again in the 1980s when Reagan was elected. Reagan changed government policies and tax rates to favor the rich.
Government policies are very important. Both Republicans and Democrats understand this. Republicans like the general slope of the curve since Reagan began favoring the rich. They plan to fight to keep it moving in a direction that favors the rich. I don't think this is good for America. It makes America different from the country that I grew up in during the 1960s and 70s. I still believe that part of the goodness of America during that period was that all members of the "Greatest Generation," rich and poor, had fought together in World War II, which had imposed some self-restraint on the greed of the leaders of the country, a restraint that does not exist today. Significantly, Reagan, although he served in the military during WW II, did not fight; he just continued to make movies in California, albeit for the military while in uniform. George H.W. Bush was a much better representative of the Greatest Generation than Reagan was.
The fight over where we go from here may lead to a government shutdown. But from the looks of this graph, the last shutdown did not have much effect.
Goldstone's Reversal on Israel's War Crimes
He seems to say that since Israel would not cooperate with him, he just made up accusations of war crimes. Now that Israel has begun to investigate them, according to a new report by Mary McGowan Davis, everything is okay. If Goldstone just made up the accusations and lied to the UN to start with, why should we believe anything he has to say now? He is totally discredited.
This is of course what Israel wants. Israelis hate Goldstone with a passion seldom seen elsewhere, even in Israel, a country founded on, and consumed by, hatred. I don't know her background, but I suspect that Mary McGowan Davis was chosen because the Israelis were confident that she would issue a report in their favor. Why is there even a follow-up report? Why did the Israelis cooperate with her and not with Goldstone? Apparently she accepted Israeli assurances unquestioningly, although the investigations that she accepted at face value are not finished and have not resulted in any punishment or changes in Israeli policy. She was much more of a patsy for the Israelis than Goldstone was, but she now provides a means for Goldstone to try to appease the Israelis and decrease the Jewish threats against himself and his family.
Fortunately, we don't need Goldstone to tell us that Israel is a corrupt nation of hate-filled racists. It's disgraceful that American Jews (and many evangelical Christians) defend and support such a vile, godless, despicable country. They sully their own image.
Government Shutdown
As part of the then Republican retrenchment, the government cut off funding for two programs I was working on. One, the Maria Sklodowska Curie science cooperation fund, would have provided income for Polish scientists who lost their Polish government funding when Communism fell. Cutting of their funding was sort of an anti-Marshall Plan. The Poles took Reagan's advice to overthrow Communism, and Gingrich and the Republicans turned their backs on them.
I didn't like it then, and I don't like the shutdown now, but at least now I'm not representing the dishonest, unreliable US government.
Monday, April 04, 2011
Old Prophecies Regarding Israel
This prophecy could just as well apply to the country named Israel today.Thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts.As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets,Saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth: for they have turned their back unto me, and not their face: but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Jews Attack Jew for Attacking Jews
We should be grateful that Jews are not a unified bunch, but there is a strong contingent of Zionist Jews who are very pro-Israel, often being more concerned about Israel than their home country, whether Great Britain or the United States.
It's typical of Israel, a morally bankrupt state, that its citizens would be in jeopardy of being tried for war crimes in Great Britain. And its typical of Jews that they would attack their home country for allowing that possibility.
Joe Lieberman, are you listening?
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
UN Chief Criticizes Israel
Monday, March 21, 2011
Fox News vs. Public Broadcasting
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Yogi Berra, World War II, and Unemployment
Progressive Democratic Gentleman
Government Fails in Banking Crisis
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Fiscal Policy A Shambles
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Companies, Not Fed to Blame
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Impolite Politicians
Political discourse has become so bitter, it's hard to see how anyone can remain civil.
Last night I was shocked at how impolite Sen. Orrin Hatch was to Judy Woodruff on PBS' Newshour. He insulted HHS Secretary Sebelius, saying, "She just doesn't know what she's talking about." He was sarcastic, responding to one of Judy Woodruff's questions with, "Oh, isn't that wonderful?" And, "That's what I call bull corn." And later, "I see a middle ground.... They ought to trash the bill and get rid of it."
Interestingly, the New York Times had a tongue-in-cheek op-ed today on a civility course on Arizona. If there were such a thing, Sen. Hatch and his colleagues should enroll in it.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Government Shutdown Coming?
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Angry Letter to Congressional Delegation
Friday, February 11, 2011
Revolution
Monday, February 07, 2011
Will Republicans Maintain America's Honor?
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Glenn Beck and Elites
His participation in the Fox News disinformation campaign to claim that Obama's Indiq trip will cost $200 million per day is also despicable. The claim is based on an incorrect statement by some low ranking Indian local official. It's just the Communist big lie.
Saturday, November 06, 2010
The Economist on the Elections
Only four years after the voters sent them packing, handing both chambers of Congress to the Democrats at the 2006 mid-terms, the Republicans are back. Voters then (and again in 2008) decided that Republican policies had blown up the deficit with unaffordable tax cuts, let the banks run wild, dragged America into two costly wars and produced a wretched harvest of stagnant wages, rising job insecurity and soaring health-care costs. Now they seem to have decided that they like Barack Obama and the Democrats even less.
Friday, November 05, 2010
US Stimulus Goes Overseas
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has tried everything to feed the U.S. economy the liquidity it needs to revive. In the process, he has conjured up more than $1 trillion of fresh monetary stimulus out of thin air. Inevitably, much of it has ventured overseas in search of yield. The big beneficiaries have been the stock markets of the emerging-market economies.
Deja Vu
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Swift Boaters Still Around
Friday, October 29, 2010
Jon Stewart vs. Obama
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Juan Williams and NPR Fund Raising
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Juan Williams Fired by NPR
I happen to agree with both Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez; so, I'm sad to see them punished for speaking their minds. I'm sure that NPR has been looking for an excuse to fire Juan Williams for being a Fox News commentator, and I frankly think that is somewhat justified, because Fox has a definite political point of view that Juan Williams helps sell on the air, even if he sometimes differs with the more doctrinaire Fox commentators. He has been trading on his NPR affiliation to give credance to Fox's right wing commentary.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Rick Sanchez and the Jewish Media
The problem for me is that I think what Sanchez said is true, but it’s politically incorrect to say it. If it’s not true, they should refute it, not lambaste him for being anti-Semitic. It’s a difficult issue. The fact that Jews control the media (to a large extent) may not be bad. They are very smart. (Is that racist to say?) Jews own the New York Times, which I love, and the Washington Post. Some of my favorite columnists are Jews – David Brooks, Tom Friedman and Andrew Ross Sorkin, who write for the Times. My main complaint is that most Jews cannot be unbiased about
I can't find the Economist article I remember about Jeb Bush; I don't think the on-line archives go back far enough. This article from the St. Petersburg Times, however, is right on point. There are allusions to some questionable business dealings with Cubans in Wikipedia. Here and here are copies of a 1992 article from Mother Jones about Jeb's questionable dealings with the Cuban community.
I guess the lesson of this is that every ethnic group builds shady, mafia-like networks -- WASPs (the Bush family), Jews (finance and the media), Cubans (Florida real estate and CIA shenanigans), and of course the original mafia, the Italians.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Fox and Pravda
The Ministry of Truth controls information: news, entertainment, education, and the arts. Winston Smith works in the Minitrue RecDep (Records Department), "rectifying" historical records to concord with Big Brother's current pronouncements, thus everything the Party says is true.
Obama' Detroit Rescue Was Worth It
Benevolent CEOs
Israel Warns American Jews
There's been some controversy here in Washington about a short sermon Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the United States, delivered at my synagogue, Adas Israel, and two other synagogues over the course of Yom Kippur. I took the sermon as a warning from the Netanyahu government: There may be tough times ahead, in the peace process, and with Iran, so it is time for American Jews to cowboy-up and deal with the difficulties our brethren in Israel are facing. Others in my congregation took the speech as a signal that Israel was prepping American Jewry for an inevitable attack on Iran, or, at the very least, for an Israeli unwillingness to freeze settlement growth, which could lead to the end of the current round of peace talks.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Breyer v. Beck
Friday, September 17, 2010
Still Support Obama
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Emily Dickinson on Fame
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd banish us. you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Take that Paris Hilton, Madonna, Newt Gingrich, and all the rest of you, croaking in your bog.
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Big Shots Don't Serve
Saturday, July 31, 2010
America's Disappearing Middle Class
The annual incomes of the bottom 90 per cent of US families have been essentially flat since 1973 – having risen by only 10 per cent in real terms over the past 37 years. That means most Americans have been treading water for more than a generation. Over the same period the incomes of the top 1 per cent have tripled. In 1973, chief executives were on average paid 26 times the median income. Now the multiple is above 300.
In today’s America if you are born in rags, you are likelier to stay in rags than in almost any corner of old Europe.
“I have this gnawing feeling about the future of America,” says [economist Michael] Spence. “When people lose the sense of optimism, things tend to get more volatile. The future I most fear for America is Latin American: a grossly unequal society that is prone to wild swings from populism to orthodoxy, which makes sensible government increasingly hard to imagine."
The crucial driver of growth in the second quarter was business investment in such things as office buildings and equipment and software. Such activity rocketed up at an annual rate of 17 percent in the second quarter, compared with a 7.8 percent increase in the first. The equipment and software category alone grew at an annual rate of 21.9 percent, the fastest pace in 12 years.
The fact that businesses seem to be investing more in equipment than in hiring may be a reason consumers have been reluctant, or perhaps unable, to pick up the pace of their spending.
“There are limits on the degree to which you can substitute capital for labor,” Mr. Ryding said. “But you can understand that businesses don’t have to pay health care on equipment and software, and these get better tax treatment than you get for hiring people. If you can get away with upgrading capital spending and deferring hiring for a while, that makes economic sense, especially in this uncertain policy environment.”Finally, in a NYT op-ed, Bob Herbert wrote about what corporate American has done to workers. He said:
Many ... workers were cashiered for no reason other than outright greed by corporate managers.
From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.
Worker productivity has increased dramatically, but the workers themselves have seen no gains from their increased production. It has all gone to corporate profits. This is unprecedented in the postwar years, and it is wrong.
Germany and Japan, because of a combination of government and corporate policies, suffered far less worker dislocation in the recession than the U.S. Until we begin to value our workers, and understand the critical importance of employment to a thriving economy, we will continue to see our standards of living decline.It is sad that US tax policy favors capital so much over labor that it discourages businesses from hiring. I am beginning to think that the destruction of the middle class started with the Reagan tax cuts. It has taken more than a generation for that effect to become apparent, but nevertheless, there it is. One reason it didn't show up earlier was that Reagan was such a nice guy, he couldn't bring himself to hurt people. When it became obvious that the huge cuts in government services that his advisers wanted to go with the tax cuts would badly hurt ordinary Americans, Reagan balked, and as a result we got the beginning of the huge budget deficits that we are wrestling with today. But the Republicans have never given up on their "starve the beast" policy of cutting government services by cutting tax revenues. So, the Republicans under Bush II and Reagan have been responsible for some of the largest deficits. They have also been responsible for a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the upper class. In particular by eliminating the estate or "death" tax, they have created a hereditary aristocracy in America, something that we thought we had left behind when we rebelled against Great Britain. There are no titles, yet, but there are all the other trappings of an aristocracy.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Brazil Resumes Rocket Launches
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Letter to Congress
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Israeli Arrow Missile
Friday, July 23, 2010
Financial Times Austerity Debate
Monday, July 19, 2010
Republicans Made a Mess
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Article on Israeli Nuclear Program
Monday, July 05, 2010
Lula, Celso Amorim and Me
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Draft Coming Back?
Supreme Court Doesn't Believe in Rule of Law
Saturday, June 26, 2010
McChrystal's Firing Not Black or White
Jews Against Zionism
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Richard Cohen Lies about Israel
It was the plight of Jews consigned to Displaced Persons camps in Europe that both moved and outraged President Harry Truman, who supported Jewish immigration to Palestine and, when the time came, the new state itself. Something had to be done for the Jews of Europe. They were still being murdered.
On May 12, [1948,] Truman held a meeting in the Oval Office to decide the issue. Marshall and his universally respected deputy, Robert Lovett, made the case for delaying recognition -- and "delay" really meant "deny." Truman asked his young aide, Clark Clifford, to present the case for immediate recognition. When Clifford finished, Marshall, uncharacteristically, exploded. "I don't even know why Clifford is here. He is a domestic adviser, and this is a foreign policy matter. The only reason Clifford is here is that he is pressing a political consideration."
Marshall then uttered what Clifford would later call "the most remarkable threat I ever heard anyone make directly to a President." In an unusual top-secret memorandum Marshall wrote for the historical files after the meeting, the great general recorded his own words: "I said bluntly that if the President were to follow Mr. Clifford's advice and if in the elections I were to vote, I would vote against the President."