reduce to fit
as simple as possible,
but no simpler.
- einstein
an independent blog
in the heart of a red state
e pluribus unum
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The "This Time Is Different" Exception
So in response to a snarky post I made on Sunday, asking whether tea party loving, federal government...
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Chalkboard of awesomeness at the Obama HQ in Coral Springs, Florida.
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Dems use billboard outside the Republican convention to hit Romney on outsourcing.
The image changes once every 7.5 seconds.
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If Only the Party Could Keep Republicans Away From Their Own Convention
I’m about to write a sentence I never though anyone would ever write: I... -
Comments from the “right” frequently express fear of what happens to society if people are rewarded for not working.
GOOD POINT.
That’s exactly where we are now, and that’s what the Occupy folks have, in the larger scheme of things, been protesting — the reason there’s a huge “wealth gap” between the “.01%” and the rest of us is because non-work is being rewarded through the financial sector, at obscenely high levels.
Most of us “99%” people truly aren’t aiming for “absolute equality” or “socialism,” but rather for making sure the people who actually *do the work* get to see a *reasonable percentage* of the “fruits of their labors” — i.e., getting the “inequality” back to healthier levels (but not to the point of being unhealthily “equal”), so that people on the lower ends DO have an incentive to work.
When the “wealth gap” becomes this super-high, that’s not happening. Why? Because too high a percentage of the wealth created by “those who work” — i.e., “labor” — is being air-suctioned directly up to the top (to more accurately structure Grover Norquist’s neo-sociopathic “put our foot on the air hose” analogy — **see below) instead of being invested back into our economy as an incentive for people to work.
When the “wealth gap” gets bad enough, because of this disproportionate redistribution of work-created wealth to the top, the folks increasingly stuck at the bottom realize the “game” has become rigged against them so that they can’t take care of themselves even if they DO work, so they end up eventually *having* to resort to socialism.
Ayn Rand adherents like to threaten that if the wealthy are taxed, they’ll have no incentive to participate in our economy, and will “go Galt,” effectively taking their toys and going home.
Similarly, inevitable anti-capitalist revolution resulting from disproportionate redistribution of wealth to the top may be viewed as a sort of metaphorical, reverse “Galt’s Gulch” — likewise “an organized ‘strike’ against those who […] confiscate the accomplishments of society’s productive members” — a “strike” against “‘continuing to endorse’ our own ‘economic disenfranchisement.’”
What this means is that allowing a huge wealth gap to form, by routing as much money as possible to the wealthy via irresponsible, unsustainable tax cuts, eventually RESULTS IN socialism (or something equally not-capitalist). Whereas tax policies which encourage investing in America (and which tax the heck out of *only the top, wealth-gap-causing tiers* of income of those who don’t invest said top tiers of wealth in America), in ways that create incentives for everyone else to “work to take care of themselves” (like decent-paying jobs, benefits, etc.), helps PREVENT socialism/anti-capitalist revolution, while still encouraging work and rewarding ambition.
Deregulating and the Bush tax cuts didn’t get rid of the society-destabilizing “wealth gap” spike. To the contrary, in order to do that, you have to be able to (a) make basic rules, a.k.a. “regulations,” for the financial sector to play its gambling/rentier games within, and then (b) make sure tax policies aren’t excessively rewarding non-creative work and gambling on either end of the “wealth” spectrum.
Our economy has, since deregulation, gone from one where work and community-building were rewarded, to one where playing incredibly risky games in the financial sector with other people’s money is rewarded… and where laying workers off without concern for the effects on their communities and families, in order to “boost shareholder value” is rewarded… and where blowing off employees, clients and customers, and destroying the good name of an American company that’s been built over generations, in order to “boost shareholder value” in the immediate short-term, is rewarded.
Because of the cost to each of us of the devastation caused by the sheer ginormousness of the private financial sector’s recently-unfettered greed, compared to the relatively tiny expense to each of us of a non-working person receiving public welfare, financial sector gaming deregulation is a much *more dangerous* problem for America than poor people depending on welfare. (Yes, disincentives for self-sufficiency in that system should likewise be subject to reform — but right after the more dangerous stuff.)
Until the financial sector gets both regulated and taxed sanely, in such a way that gambling and “rentier” behavior is NOT rewarded more than genuine work that actually creates worthwhile things, then the “bad things” going on now will only get worse…
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** Original transcript - Grover Norquist at CPAC 2012:
“Our job is to say no to tax increases, stop throwing money in the center of the table, put our foot on the air hose*, and watch that pile of cash begin to decline. And then our friends on the left begin to look at each other around the table a little bit more like the second to the last scene in those lifeboat movies. Now they’re wondering who they’re gonna eat, or who they’re gonna throw overboard. [laughter] The left is not made up of friends and allies. It is made up of competing parasites. [applause]” [Response to “parasites” analogy here]
* Why Grover Norquist’s “air hose” metaphor is a neo-sociopath scam on fiscal conservatives…
Grover Norquist has this interesting spiel where he says that we need to “step on the air hose” to “starve” the (in his fantasy universe) socialists of “air,” so they’ll “eat their own” trying to fight for dwindling resources. He tries to appeal to a typical anti-tax voter, who imagines that the “air”/money will then stay in his pocketbook. But that’s not how it works. The “air” just gets diverted up to the super-wealthy instead of going to the government, and you’re even worse off than you were before. Why? Because you just voted away your own power to keep the super-wealthy from stepping on YOUR “air hose.” Which they’ll do next, because that’s how they got where they are today. [ <— See The Men Who Crashed The World: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 ]
This is a response to right-wing comments about how charity is supposedly only valid at the one-on-one level, that taxation in the democratic republic of America = “taking at gunpoint,” and bogus claims that Republicans want to reward “hard work” while Democrats want to “take what you worked hard for,” when it’s actually the opposite:
Ya know, it -used- to be that you could get a job, “WORK HARD,” and be paid fairly for that work. As you helped a company prosper, you saw the fruits of your labor through raises, promotions, benefits, retirement, etc. That was the legacy of early labor unions fighting for those who “WORK HARD.” Now, you get a job, “WORK HARD,” and the shareholders of your company, and/or people at companies like Bain, and/or game players in the finance industry, **make off like bandits**, while telling you there’s no money for raises, and that in fact you have to work harder, and take a pay cut, and pay more for worse benefits. The way you can tell they’re making off like bandits is by looking at the post-deregulation spike in the “wealth gap” charts.
There was a significant period of time, during the post-9/11 crash, where the mid-sized tech company my spouse worked for cut all its professionals to minimum wage, and **they only paid that much because the Dept. of Labor made them** (<— see “‘big government’ makes sure those who ‘WORK HARD’ at least aren’t being -totally- screwed over”). There were -no- other jobs to go to at that point, because of the whole Enron thing (<— see ‘rich people’ taking money that other people ‘WORKED HARD’ for) crashing the economy as well. Note that the Enron thing was -caused- by greedy rich people, and it -affected all of us-. The tech company eventually paid back some, but not all, of its employees some, but not all, of their money, but in the meantime, it was operating in effect off of forced loans by employees from their retirement savings, borrowing from our family members, etc., and the company DID NOT pay interest on those “loans.”
So we lost literally YEARS of potential retirement investment, etc. — and the Republicans who enable these kinds of financial crashes where the wealthy game the system to profit, are also the ones who want to take away the social safety nets and make us invest for our own retirements. INVEST WHAT? You’ve enabled the super-wealthy to decimate people’s -entire life savings- they “WORKED HARD” to build, and then to give themselves bonuses while families they preyed upon are getting shafted! So I have no patience for those who try to give me nonsense about how only the wealthy investors take “risks” to make their companies work, or that the wealthy get wealthy only because they “WORKED HARDER” than less wealthy people. Because that’s a bunch of BS.
Now the same kinds of things are happening to a lot more folks, because greedy rich people crashed the economy on an even broader scale.*(see links below) So how is it the “right” isn’t complaining about **rich, greedy sociopaths** taking money from the people who “WORK HARD”? I’m sorry, but being a shareholder isn’t “working hard.”
Rush Limbaugh says…
“Do you think that it is accidental, that the name of the really vicious, fire-breathing, four-eyed, whatever-it-is villain in this movie is named Bane?”
Um… YES!
Here’s an alternate question: “Do you think it’s accidental” that Rush Limbaugh pushes the trinity of fear, ignorance and hate to his audience?
Fact Check on Bane, the Batman character:
“The character’s origin was in Batman: Vengeance of Bane #1 (January 1993)” Read more…
Read the EXTENSIVE history of the character here. Nothing to do with Mitt Romney; what a surprise.
For what it’s worth, “bane” is actually a word. Let’s use it in a sentence: “Bain is the bane of Mitt Romney’s campaign.” Oo, a poem! Maybe the folks who named the company “Bain” should have thought that homonym issue through…
Or maybe, while Rush Limbaugh is on the subject, he can ask next: “Do you think that it is accidental, that the name of Mitt Romney’s infamous corporation sounds JUST LIKE a word that means ‘A cause of harm, ruin, or death’ or ‘a deadly poison’?” Hmm…
Meanwhile, due to the actual movie plot, this author is “starting to imagine conservatives turning around and embracing the new Batman movie in, oh, 48 hours.”
“Democracy - use it or lose it.” — Bernard Waugh, Jr., NH Municipal Association Legal Counsel; The Bradford Bridge, March 1992, p. 5
**NEWS FLASH**
“Democracy” not a four-letter word!
Still running across coworkers trying to confuse our revolutionary U.S. brand of “democracy” with “communism”?*
Here’s a snapshot of true-blooded American reality from before the crazy-pants brainwashing began…
“Remember that people worldwide are throwing off communist oppression to create and secure for themselves precisely the kind of *democratic* rights we in our complacency take for granted.”
*Those of you living in “blue” states who don’t think this actually happens, see our local native in action:
“Grover Norquist Pledge Against Taxes Attracts Fewer Republican Candidates,” by Patrick Svitek »»»
Good news for the future of our nation…
Did you know… A well-known corporation in the finance sector thinks we — “the rest, the ‘non-rich,’ the multitudinous many” — are economically irrelevant …except as potential threats in the voting booth? [Read their words here]
Let’s repeat this part…
Except as potential threats in the voting booth. <— Here’s where we come in.
Back in 2006, in a candid and informative publication geared toward its wealthy clients, a well-known corporation in the financial sector explained the fiscal hazards to the wealthy (like Mitt Romney) if “the rest, the ‘non-rich,’ the multitudinous many,” were to actually pay attention and vote for, rather than against, their own best interests…
The 1% speaks:
“Perhaps the most immediate challenge to Plutonomy comes from the political process. Ultimately, the rise in income and wealth inequality to some extent is an economic disenfranchisement of the masses to the benefit of the few. However in democracies this is rarely tolerated forever. One of the key forces helping plutonomists over the last 20 years has been the rise in the profit share – the flip side of the fall in the wage share in GDP. [[i.e., greater % of all income going to wealthy people doing nothing, less going to people actually creating/working]] As plutonomists or capitalists tend to be long {on} the profit share, they have benefited from trends like globalization and the productivity revolution, disproportionately. However, labor has, relatively speaking, lost out. We see the biggest threat to plutonomy as coming from a rise in political demands to reduce income inequality, spread the wealth more evenly, and challenge forces such as globalization which have benefited profit and wealth growth. …
Our own view is that the rich are likely to keep getting even richer, and enjoy an even greater share of the wealth pie over the coming years.”
(Wait, isn’t that “wealth pie” something the income-inequality apologists claim doesn’t exist?)
Earlier that year, this was their prognosis:
Let’s reclaim the meme…
The name “Obamacare” has always been annoying to me.
In part because the real issue is health INSURANCE reform, coupled with getting health care costs under control, and “Obamacare” makes it sound (incorrectly) like “government run health care.” It isn’t, and it NEVER WAS “government run health care.” “Health care” and “health insurance” are not the same thing.
And in part because using the term “Obamacare” was an effort by those who profit from defects in the status quo to associate health insurance/care reform with President Obama in the minds of his haters, and thus turn their hearts and minds against the reform, even though their own party initially devised said reform.
So, with this in mind, I was delighted to read about a woman planning to put an “ObamaCares” bumper sticker on her car…
(Note: reduce to fit has no connection with the seller of said bumper stickers.)
Obamacare is “not even the biggest tax hike in the past .. 20 years.”
“Republicans […] are now proclaiming far and loud across the land that ‘Obamacare is the largest tax increase in the history of the world’.” — Read more…
