The thing about riding solo for a long distance on a motorcycle is that your mind has time for thinking about, well, stuff. There certainly is the little matter of keeping the scooter where it belongs and watching out for things that could interfere with your continued breathing but with experience that becomes somewhat automatic and doesn’t occupy your entire intellect. So the, in my case, questionable occupation becomes mulling over somewhat larger concepts than food and drink.
Since I was spending a whole lot of time riding across the plains of Montana and North Dakota I needed something to occupy my mind – there is a really large amount of not much out there. “Oh look, there’s a tree,” quickly loses its novelty. So I reflected on the folks I was meeting along the way, friendly open folks - that was amongst us white folks. There is a real strong current of that "descendants of the rugged individualist Old West" theme.
I certainly won't deny that it was hard dangerous work ranching and homesteading the Plains, but it also has generated a myth of stand on your own and keep the government out of the way in that spirit. This ignores some rather inconvenient facts in service to the charges of socialistic Obama-ism. No cowboys or homesteads would have happened without a way to get the products to market and that way was railroads. Rails got laid out here because the government handed out right of way parcels to the railroads on each side of the rails - serious parcels worth serious money because close to rails is valuable to own. Lots of land to sell for lots of money. Importing cheap labor also wasn't a problem.
There is the little matter of the land the ranches and homesteads were put on, very nearly free or free from the government in pursuit of settling the land. The largest purchaser of the products from the lands was the government - in great part to supply the Army. That Army was very busy subduing, moving, or slaughtering the indigenous people, different religion terrorists called American Indians. The descendants of the beneficiaries of serious socialism are real busy crying about socialism now in the name of their history (er myth).
I take nothing away from their ancestors, but the government had an end in mind and didn't care a bit about seriously subsidizing the people who were accomplishing that end. It continues today as ethanol is subsidized to add to gasoline so that 15% power and mileage can be lost in search of ... well I'm not sure what. The math is very troublesome.
Showing posts with label Socialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Socialism. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Friday, April 10, 2009
Seventeen Socialists
Baucus Says Socialist Candidate Should Be Arrested:
Oh, either we've got Portrait of Dorian Grey going on or there's just not much new in the world, including names. Maybe something a bit more current...?
Sen Spencer Bachus (R-AL) is a bit more modern version of the homonym blast from the past as he told The Birmingham News (April 9, 2009) that Obama listens better than GWB but he's worried about Congress.
So far nobody has managed to get names to go with the number though it would be fairly safe to say that Sen Bernie Sanders might just qualify. We do keep hearing the word "socialism" from Republicans and their fellow travelers in the loon right but they don't seem to be very definite about the measuring stick they use.
The Economy Professor defines socialism for us which would cover the practitioners known as socialists.
So is this the latest iteration of Sen Joe McCarthy's waving of a piece of paper with supposed Commie names? If you throw Rep Michelle Bachman into this mix with her "re-education camps" rhetoric one has to start to wonder. You will note that in the definition the "perfected" form of socialism is communism. The Republicans do manage to throw around words questioning the patriotism of Democrats or anyone who doesn't follow their version of political policy. I'm sure quite a few people can remember the BushCo versions of "terrorist appeasers" and other offensive appellations for opposition to the Iraq war.
Quite frankly I have seen less than no evidence of socialism from anybody in Congress, what I have seen is the propping up of the oligarchy and plutocrats through loans and the purchases of stupidity generated "assets." To assert that attempts to keep private enterprises afloat in the face of Republican encouraged stupidities that threaten the entire financial system with destruction as socialism is beyond lunacy. If we were to see deliberate attempts to use these various forms of bailouts as mechanisms to level the economic field there might be some justification in the allegations of socialism. Rather what we do see is the same old crap headed our way in regard to economic justice with no more that a bit of proposed oversight to prevent today's type of meltdown. For pete's sake, the median income in this country is around $50K/year and we're looking at bonuses that are 100 times that. Bonuses???
I could think of a boatload of names to call these people and most of them are not only rude but also true.
President Wilson has been urged to order the arrest of Morris Hillquit, Socialist candidate for Mayor on a charge of high treason, as a result of his utterances in a speech made on Sunday afternoon at the New Star Casino, Lexington Avenue and 107th Street. In this address Mr. Hillquit said that a Socialist victory in New York City would... (October 30, 1917, Tuesday)
Oh, either we've got Portrait of Dorian Grey going on or there's just not much new in the world, including names. Maybe something a bit more current...?
Sen Spencer Bachus (R-AL) is a bit more modern version of the homonym blast from the past as he told The Birmingham News (April 9, 2009) that Obama listens better than GWB but he's worried about Congress.
But he said he is worried that he is being steered too far by the Congress: "Some of the men and women I work with in Congress are socialists."
Asked to clarify his comments after the breakfast speech at the Trussville Civic Center, Bachus said 17 members of the U.S. House are socialists.
So far nobody has managed to get names to go with the number though it would be fairly safe to say that Sen Bernie Sanders might just qualify. We do keep hearing the word "socialism" from Republicans and their fellow travelers in the loon right but they don't seem to be very definite about the measuring stick they use.
The Economy Professor defines socialism for us which would cover the practitioners known as socialists.
Socialism is an economic system under which the means of production and distribution are owned by the state, and not the individuals.
In a socialist economy, the state owns the industrial plants, and centrally controls production.
The idea of socialism was enunciated by Karl Marx.
Socialism is different from communism, which, in fact, is the ideal and final stage of socialism where the state is no more, and the people are equal as proletarians.
So is this the latest iteration of Sen Joe McCarthy's waving of a piece of paper with supposed Commie names? If you throw Rep Michelle Bachman into this mix with her "re-education camps" rhetoric one has to start to wonder. You will note that in the definition the "perfected" form of socialism is communism. The Republicans do manage to throw around words questioning the patriotism of Democrats or anyone who doesn't follow their version of political policy. I'm sure quite a few people can remember the BushCo versions of "terrorist appeasers" and other offensive appellations for opposition to the Iraq war.
Quite frankly I have seen less than no evidence of socialism from anybody in Congress, what I have seen is the propping up of the oligarchy and plutocrats through loans and the purchases of stupidity generated "assets." To assert that attempts to keep private enterprises afloat in the face of Republican encouraged stupidities that threaten the entire financial system with destruction as socialism is beyond lunacy. If we were to see deliberate attempts to use these various forms of bailouts as mechanisms to level the economic field there might be some justification in the allegations of socialism. Rather what we do see is the same old crap headed our way in regard to economic justice with no more that a bit of proposed oversight to prevent today's type of meltdown. For pete's sake, the median income in this country is around $50K/year and we're looking at bonuses that are 100 times that. Bonuses???
I could think of a boatload of names to call these people and most of them are not only rude but also true.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Now That We're All Socialists
Since we're becoming socialists it might be important to know what that means. AIG was bailed out by the US government and now it seems we'll be buying mortgages and securities. Our government just went right straight into business, stock market business. Try to find the government in the world that has gone into a one trillion dollar socialization program. We're not buying something like Exxon Mobil; we're buying junk. Now, it isn't like we can watch the credit markets implode and think the rest of the system won't go with it. I'm not going to argue that and I'm not going say that "these people" getting taught a lesson is nearly as important as avoiding economic catastrophe. But now I do want to know where this socialism experiment is going to go.
Where it stands is that people took out loans they shouldn't have, and people issued loans to those who shouldn't have gotten them, and then those got packaged up into a real mess. Lots of blame to spread around but where it stops is the lending. The money was loaned because it could be loaned and then sold and sold and sold. The US government said, OK, you'll do fine on your own. When the foreclosures started the government was fine with it, "that'll teach them," as long as it was individuals - regular folks in over their heads. So, we understand that it has to be a crisis and one in a big way.
I can think of other crisis situations, like health care. Today we have some sort of socialization of health care - broke and uninsured you can still go to the emergency room and those costs get dumped into the system, governmental health programs and insurance to pay for it. Those pieces get to socialize this in an uneven and strategically stupid fashion. A single payer system is called socialized medicine by the Republicans and plutocrats in general. Somehow this crisis doesn't rise to the bar. Why is pretty interesting.
The health care debacle in the US is killing our companies' ability to compete, untreated illnesses are morphed into serious conditions costing multiples of treatment costs, huge amounts of money are being dumped into the private system with poor return - essentially we are throwing away a catastrophic sum of the citizens' and businesses' money daily. But it is the where it's thrown that is the difference, that money goes into the insurers' hands and from there into investment banks (what doesn't stay in the hands of insurers). The citizenry and businesses are financing the plutocrats with their health care. Your health risk is socialized into the pockets of wealth. No incentive? Nobody who is being raped is big enough to strike the chord of interest of the plutocrat enablers. The Democrats won't do it, not without the Republicans getting on board, even with a solid majority and the Presidency they won't try. They will get handed their heads for trying alone. The Republicans have come on board, along with their plutocratic pals and that is not going to happen as long as they have the incentive to rape the nation.
Here's what the tax adverse don't get, there are legally few ways to restrict greed. You can create disincentives. The tax structure is the one way individual money can be managed by government, and Republicans are aware of it - see the Bush tax cuts. Over amped CEO compensation starts to look manageable if the tax load is based on multiples of average worker compensation, say at 20x for the total package (that's everything, jets, stock options, even the executive restroom) the rate goes from 40% to 70%. Wealth that only generates wealth through paper games can be addressed, if your money is in concrete working assets like factories and equipment (no your yacht isn't an S-corp business) you're safe but once you're above the top 5% in total complete income your capital gains go to 25%, inheritance taxes to 25%, and there is not sheltering, everything is out there. FICA gets uncapped, no upper limit. If you send money overseas, it gets taxed both directions at the top rate. Off-shore your corporation, all US operations taxed at the top corporate rate. Military and national security and infrastructure projects denied to any non-US tax paying entity. Mortgage deduction for 1 house and zero for any house in the top 10% valuation. Enough of subsidizing these people.
Class Warfare is the first response of the Republicans and I'll agree that it is, it is the counter-attack in the war that's been waged from St Ronnie on. You've been screwed to the wall - you're reading this, I mean you - and you have no idea just exactly how badly. You cannot go to the IRS/US Census data and see how badly, it is hidden. All that huge wealth you're looking at is only IRS reported taxable income, not the real extent of it. The tax games that hide this are arcane and I have no ability to break the actual numbers down for you but what you see has no relationship to reality. This is what the government has encouraged, absolute naked greed and rapaciousness because there is no downside to it. The mess we're in right now let run its course would only dent true wealth while killing everybody else and it is being socialized because it would dent wealth. There is the specter of global chaos and violence, but you have a lot of faith if you think that is the foundation.
The next Republican or plutocratic enabler that says something about personal responsibility should have a gun stuck in their face and given some personal responsibility. By rights, there should exist in this country a real opposition to the plutocrat agenda and there is not. There is no payback for sticking it to the citizens, we'll actually re-elect a bunch of these dirtbags and wealth itself will not be held to account at all. They won't be burned out of their mansions and tarred and feathered, they'll hang onto their wealth. Too bad.
Where it stands is that people took out loans they shouldn't have, and people issued loans to those who shouldn't have gotten them, and then those got packaged up into a real mess. Lots of blame to spread around but where it stops is the lending. The money was loaned because it could be loaned and then sold and sold and sold. The US government said, OK, you'll do fine on your own. When the foreclosures started the government was fine with it, "that'll teach them," as long as it was individuals - regular folks in over their heads. So, we understand that it has to be a crisis and one in a big way.
I can think of other crisis situations, like health care. Today we have some sort of socialization of health care - broke and uninsured you can still go to the emergency room and those costs get dumped into the system, governmental health programs and insurance to pay for it. Those pieces get to socialize this in an uneven and strategically stupid fashion. A single payer system is called socialized medicine by the Republicans and plutocrats in general. Somehow this crisis doesn't rise to the bar. Why is pretty interesting.
The health care debacle in the US is killing our companies' ability to compete, untreated illnesses are morphed into serious conditions costing multiples of treatment costs, huge amounts of money are being dumped into the private system with poor return - essentially we are throwing away a catastrophic sum of the citizens' and businesses' money daily. But it is the where it's thrown that is the difference, that money goes into the insurers' hands and from there into investment banks (what doesn't stay in the hands of insurers). The citizenry and businesses are financing the plutocrats with their health care. Your health risk is socialized into the pockets of wealth. No incentive? Nobody who is being raped is big enough to strike the chord of interest of the plutocrat enablers. The Democrats won't do it, not without the Republicans getting on board, even with a solid majority and the Presidency they won't try. They will get handed their heads for trying alone. The Republicans have come on board, along with their plutocratic pals and that is not going to happen as long as they have the incentive to rape the nation.
Here's what the tax adverse don't get, there are legally few ways to restrict greed. You can create disincentives. The tax structure is the one way individual money can be managed by government, and Republicans are aware of it - see the Bush tax cuts. Over amped CEO compensation starts to look manageable if the tax load is based on multiples of average worker compensation, say at 20x for the total package (that's everything, jets, stock options, even the executive restroom) the rate goes from 40% to 70%. Wealth that only generates wealth through paper games can be addressed, if your money is in concrete working assets like factories and equipment (no your yacht isn't an S-corp business) you're safe but once you're above the top 5% in total complete income your capital gains go to 25%, inheritance taxes to 25%, and there is not sheltering, everything is out there. FICA gets uncapped, no upper limit. If you send money overseas, it gets taxed both directions at the top rate. Off-shore your corporation, all US operations taxed at the top corporate rate. Military and national security and infrastructure projects denied to any non-US tax paying entity. Mortgage deduction for 1 house and zero for any house in the top 10% valuation. Enough of subsidizing these people.
Class Warfare is the first response of the Republicans and I'll agree that it is, it is the counter-attack in the war that's been waged from St Ronnie on. You've been screwed to the wall - you're reading this, I mean you - and you have no idea just exactly how badly. You cannot go to the IRS/US Census data and see how badly, it is hidden. All that huge wealth you're looking at is only IRS reported taxable income, not the real extent of it. The tax games that hide this are arcane and I have no ability to break the actual numbers down for you but what you see has no relationship to reality. This is what the government has encouraged, absolute naked greed and rapaciousness because there is no downside to it. The mess we're in right now let run its course would only dent true wealth while killing everybody else and it is being socialized because it would dent wealth. There is the specter of global chaos and violence, but you have a lot of faith if you think that is the foundation.
The next Republican or plutocratic enabler that says something about personal responsibility should have a gun stuck in their face and given some personal responsibility. By rights, there should exist in this country a real opposition to the plutocrat agenda and there is not. There is no payback for sticking it to the citizens, we'll actually re-elect a bunch of these dirtbags and wealth itself will not be held to account at all. They won't be burned out of their mansions and tarred and feathered, they'll hang onto their wealth. Too bad.
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