On the Contrary

Nazi commander discovered living in Minnesota. Now I finally get how Michele Bachmann got elected.

Oh, and on Jeb Bush’s comment of immigrants being more fertile, I heard the speech and although immigrants do have more children (not more fertile) he was defending immigration and everything he said was true. If you doubt it, check our history. Man we have to chill out.

According to the lastest poll, 48% of Americans approve of the surveillance program.  Say what?  We do not know the extent, we don’t know the rules, we don’t know how it is safeguarded (apparently not very well), we don’t know how long it is going to be kept, and we don’t know by any objective measure if it is effective.  And there you have why Republicans still get elected with no discernable plan for our future.  A large portion of population are brain dead and critical thinking is a foreign language to them.  Let’s vote on whether climate change is happening!

Well, what is there to say? The News can’t get any stranger:

• Michele Bachmann is retiring and when one of her advisors was confronted with her many wild ass claims, he said that sometimes she got things wrong, but she spoke and stood up for many people. Sadly those people she spoke for didn’t need a spokesperson, but probably a therapist
• In the vein of can people think, Animal Planet has aired two shows on Mermaids which claim evidence to finding Mermaids, both of which were hoaxes, but netted their largest audiences. Quick, get them to a voting booth so the Republicans can win a national election
• Unemployment hit an all time high this week in the Eurozone. That austerity thing working out for you? Just need to hang in there a little longer because the good times are just around the corner? What does it take to finally admit you were wrong and change course? Well the people who need to make that decision are not suffering the brunt of austerity so it will be a long time coming. Meanwhile back here in the good old USA, we have, (drum roll), austerity. Anybody seen a jobs plan?

Continue reading ‘Friday Follies’ »

Normally this is the day I write about the vineyard, but it is almost winter and describing leaves falling to the ground can get fairly monotonous.   I could describe my never ending battle with the almighty gopher, but they are winning and it is too depressing.  So I thought I would resurrect WTF Fridays because there are so many things happening in the news these days that make absolutely no sense whatsoever yet we don’t even blink:

• Simon Johnson, one of the economists you can depend on to give an unbiased view of the economic world, and generally an unswerving supporter of stimulus (austerity doesn’t work) wrote a column yesterday about why Jon Huntsman is the only one talking sense about reforming the banking industry (The Huntsman Alternative).  And Obama wonders why his support is tepid when he is running against true fruit loops who are leading in the Republican primaries.
• By the way, the only sane Republican is Jon Huntsman and he may not qualify for the next debate (You need 5% rating).  Does that tell you anything about the state of the Republican Party?
• Speaking of moronic Democrats, did you see where Congressman Jim Clyburn (D-SC) thought we ought to renegotiate the  automatic cuts that kick in if the Deficit Committee failed because they are too onerous?  Gee Jim, ever hear of moral hazard.  What was the point of establishing them in the first place?  Sending that great message that Democrats stand for nothing.
• Oh, and here is a heads up for next year.  Once again the Democrats will cave on the Bush Tax Cuts.  Here is the real problem:  THEY ALL NEED TO GO UP.  But Democrats will continue to pander to the below $250K crowd, thinking they are principled and nothing changes.
• Does anybody know what Obama thinks is the right solution for banks, fixing the economy, a real health care plan?  Does anybody know his vision and I am not talking about what he thinks might pass, but what he thinks will really fix the problem?  And again he wonders why his support is tepid at best.
• Did you see where the Senate passed 93-7 a new defense spending authorization yesterday that included language that allows the President to authorize the murder (euphemistically called a drone strike) or to detain Americans at Guantanamo without review?  Oh I misspoke.  There is a process, but it is secret.  Anybody besides me see a real contradiction here with the whole philosophy and principles behind our Constitution?  Just label me a terrorist and I no longer have a Constitution to protect me.  It makes our Constitution void and we freedom loving Americans a laughing stock of the world
• The numbers are in from Great Britain and austerity is a total failure.  Not only are things getting worse (no confidence fairy yet), but it may be pushing them into another long recession.  So what are leaders in that country doing to respond to reality?  Doubling down.
• Am I the only one to notice that when governments do something they think will help the European problem (Euro Crisis), which careful analysis says doesn’t address the real problem, the markets go crazy and then die out in a day or two when reality sets in?  Maybe the markets shouldn’t always be depended on to tell us what to do.
• Does it scare you that as policies in Europe prove to be wrong headed, the politicians double down?  That they can’t say, oops, wrong direction so let’s change course?  It almost makes Romney’s flip flopping refreshing.  At least he can change his mind if votes depend upon it, although doing the right thing doesn’t seem to apply here.
• Back to the failure of austerity and a no-show by the confidence fairy.  This should be big news and raise questions about our whole near term deficit cutting mania, but hear it even discussed on the news?  We are all atwitter about what Herb Cain’s wife will say to him when he gets home today (I know what mine would say.  Nothing.  I would just find all my stuff at the bottom of the driveway and rightfully so.)
• Oh, and in Afghanistan where we are fighting for democracy and freedom, the woman who was thrown in prison for adultery when she was raped is being released if she marries her rapist.  What the hell are we doing there and why oh why should we respect any religion with these kinds of beliefs?  Well actually I wonder why we should respect any religion, but that is a personal problem.
• And last but not least in the WTF category, I guess you saw where the Republicans voted down the payroll tax cut because they refuse to pay for it with a levy on the wealthy.  First, this is the fight we are having in Congress and this is a drop in the bucket to a real problem so you kind of get a sense of the fact that Washington is totally irrelevant to solving our real problems.  But second is their alternate proposal for paying for it.  That would be cutting the pay of Federal workers and cutting the workforce by 10%.  We just saw where austerity doesn’t work, we refuse to take our wealthy when we have a historic transfer of wealth to them, and we want to pay for a cut in payroll tax by cutting the payroll of those who would benefit from the cut?  Oy Veh.
• I almost forgot, the Republicans are against taxing the wealthy because they are job creators?  Does anybody ever ask these morons why we have the lowest tax rates in 50 years and there are no jobs?  Oh, I know, Clinton or Obama are at fault, or there is no confidence, or regulations are too onerous or…..

Oy Vey, WTF, whatever.  It is just amazing that reality keeps telling us stuff and we blithely go on our path ignoring it.  But it gives me lots of material for my blog which is good, but I really don’t want to be fiddling while Rome burns.  Some where some time, this country has to restore its path to sanity.

Some points to ponder:

• President Obama has suggested a millionaire’s tax, which under this new rule, individuals with incomes in excess of $1 million would be required to pay a minimum amount of tax no less in percentage terms than the average middle-class taxpayer.  The Republicans are claiming class warfare.  Interesting.  They have been extracting most of our treasury with favored tax and trade policies, and now want to balance the  budget over the slowing decaying bodies of the poor, and a little balance in that equation is class warfare?
• The Republicans in the house have got a bill going to make a national right to carry a concealed weapon law which would trump local state laws that restrict who can carry a concealed weapon.  Let’s see if I have this right.  State’s rights are an important rights, unless of course I disagree with what the States want to do, then I force my will down their throats utilizing the hated big government.  The federal government cannot force everyone to buy health insurance, but they can force the states to let just about anyone pack heat.  Do I have this right?  Anybody besides me see the hypocrisy here?
• Paul Volcker wrote an editorial today trying to tamp down an effort by some economists to point out that a little inflation might be a good thing.  See the banks and individuals are not reinvesting their money, but hanging on to it, which is part of our problem with the recession.  The thought is that if the Fed would quit holding down inflation and focus on their other duty which is to keep unemployment low, the economy would improve.  Inflation makes holding on to the dollar counter productive and you have to put it to work to keep up with inflation.  Volcker is a product of his times and the runaway wage-price spiral of the late 70′s.  Anybody remind Mr. Volcker that wages are falling, not growing?  Like everything else, different times calls for different strategies.
• President Obama will tell us today that he will veto any bill that attempts to attack the deficit with only cuts and must be a balanced approach with both tax revenue and cuts.  Pundits and Republicans will no doubt tell us that this is just more partisan gamesmanship.  Again, let me see if I have this right.  John Boehner says that any tax increases is a no-go, which of course is a principled position, and if the President proposes that we have a more balanced approach, it is just more partisan gamesmanship.  Anybody but me see how we have totally missed the mark on the blame game?
• There is a proposal by the President to include a Georgia program that lets businesses train jobless workers for eight weeks without having to pay them on a national scale. The program, called Georgia Works, is voluntary for businesses and workers and is only open to recipients of unemployment insurance.  Paul Ryan likes this idea especially in terms of police, firemen, and teachers.  You get to hire them for free and maybe they will be trained and get employment or they simply gave up their time for free.  Wasn’t that called slavery back before the civil war?  Just how fast can we race to the bottom?
• Last but not least, Ron Suskind, in his new book Confidence Men, tells us that President Obama was ignored by many on his staff with no adverse consequences.  That is so hard to believe seeing how he has face down the Republicans and held firm on his principles.  I think up an example in a minute.
• Oh yeah, one other thing.  Is it just me (I am sure it is) or is their something extremely hypocritical about reading about Sarah Palins alleged sex and drugs?  Who cares?  What is frightening is her stand on issues, not her private choices.  I wonder if we will ever grow up as a nation.

Since I was out of commission Yesterday (more about that later), here are a couple of additional items:

• J Crew recently ran an advertisement that celebrated the pink toenail polish worn by the 5 year-old son of the company Creative Director, Jenna Lyons.  The press (no not just Fox) went crazy with with how this might affect his gender identity.  This from people who are educated and tells why our media is so broken because they are ignorant.  Do women who wear pants as a child become masculine?  Is someone who feels like a male in a woman’s body (or vice versa) changed because they were raised to where the cloths of their original gender?.  It was truly a WTF moment and John Stewart from the Daily Show call out the outright stupidity of these morons.  It is no wonder they can’t present politics rationally.  WTF:

• I was out of commission yesterday because I was having a inguinal hernia repaired.  I actually have the public option for my healthcare as a federal retiree, just like every member of Congress (but you can’t have it unless you are on Medicare).  My surgery was done as an outpatient procedure at Kaiser Permanente in a modern and beautiful facility in Folsom California.  My treatment from start to finish was super professional, caring, and stress relieving.  I chose my surgeon, met the entire surgical staff, who reviewed everything including double, triple, and quadruple checking meds, history of drug allergies, prescription drugs, and marking and checking which side to do (the other had been done by the same surgeon several years ago).  I am home and healing today, and Kaiser made a followup call to make sure I was feeling okay today.  It cost me $233 including my prescription pain meds.  That my friends is the public option.  Did not run into one death panel the whole time.  As economist Dean Baker points out, if we were all on the public option like the rest of the industrialized world, we would pay half what we do today for our medical care and there would be no deficit problem.  We are the only industrialized country in the world who can’t quite see this as the way forward and you just have to wonder, WTF.

It is clear that we are living in a world where the choices are obvious and yet the political dialogue is moronic and you just have to say, WTF.