Friday, November 30, 2012
India: Fights the Criminalization of Shared Property
Thursday, November 29, 2012 – by Staff Report
A License to Steal ... India Skirts Patent Laws to Help Companies and Poor ... For years, India has refused to respect the patents of foreign pharmaceutical companies suspected of slightly altering their drugs merely to extend their profitability. In doing so, it helps not only the growing number of domestic generic drug makers, but also the millions who can hardly even afford the copycat drugs. – Der Spiegel
Dominant Social Theme: Contravening copyright is thievery.
Free-Market Analysis: Patent is not copyright but increasingly the two are being treated in much the same way these days. Both terms are expressions for law enforcement efforts to control what we can call "shared property."
The problem, especially in the modern era, is that shared property is replicable property. Drugs and movies come to mind. Today, drugs and movies are easily created and moved from place to place. It is a recipe for endless legal warfare because the state's determination to snuff out the uncompensated use of shared property is in conflict with what used to be called natural law. In other words, it can't be done.
The Myth of Austerity
The Myth of Austerity
by Philipp Bagus on November 30, 2012
Many politicians and commentators such as Paul Krugman claim that Europe's problem is austerity, i.e., there is insufficient government spending. The common argument goes like this: Due to a reduction of government spending, there is insufficient demand in the economy leading to unemployment. The unemployment makes things even worse as aggregate demand falls even more, causing a fall in government revenues and an increase in government deficits. European governments pressured by Germany (which did not learn from the supposedly fateful policies of Chancellor Heinrich Brüning) then reduce government spending even further, lowering demand by laying off public employees and cutting back on government transfers. This reduces demand even more in a never ending downward spiral of misery. What can be done to break out of the spiral? The answer given by commentators is simply to end austerity, boost government spending and aggregate demand. Paul Krugman even argues in favor for a preparation against an alien invasion, which would induce government to spend more. So the story goes. But is it true?
First of all, is there really austerity in the eurozone? One would think that a person is austere when she saves, i.e., if she spends less than she earns. Well, there exists not one country in the eurozone that is austere. They all spend more than they receive in revenues.
In fact, government deficits are extremely high, at unsustainable levels, as can been seen in the following chart that portrays government deficits in percentage of GDP. Note that the figures for 2012 are what governments wish for.
The absolute figures of government deficits in billion euros are even more impressive.
A good picture of "austerity" is also to compare government
expenditures and revenues (relation of public expenditures and revenues
in percentage).
Imagine that a person you know spends 12 percent more in 2008 than
her income, spends 31 percent more than her income the next year, spends
25 percent more than her income in 2010, and 26 percent more than her
income in 2011. Would you regard this person as austere? And would you
regard this behavior as sustainable? This is what the Spanish government
has done. It shows itself incapable of changing this course.
Perversely, this "austerity" is then made responsible for a shrinking
Spanish economy and high unemployment.
Unfortunately, austerity is the necessary condition for recovery in Spain, the eurozone, and elsewhere. The reduction of government spending makes real resources available for the private sector that formerly had been absorbed by the state. Reducing government spending makes profitable new private investment projects and saves old ones from bankruptcy.
Take the following example. Tom wants to open a restaurant. He makes the following calculations. He estimates the restaurant's revenues at $10,000 per month. The expected costs are the following: $4,000 for rent; $1,000 for utilities; $2,000 for food; and $4,000 for wages. With expected revenues of $10,000 and costs of $11,000 Tom will not start his business.
Let's now assume that the government is more austere, i.e., it reduces government spending. Let's assume that the government closes a consumer-protection agency and sells the agency's building on the market. As a consequence, there is a tendency for housing prices and rents to fall. The same is true for wages. The laid-off bureaucrats search for new jobs, exerting downward pressure on wage rates. Further, the agency does not consume utilities anymore, leading toward a tendency of cheaper utilities. Tom may now rent space for his restaurant in the former agency for $3,000 as rents are coming down. His expected utility bill falls to $500, and hiring some of the former bureaucrats as dish washers and waiters reduces his wage expenditures to $3,000. Now with expected revenue at $10,000 and costs at $8,500 the expected profits amounts to $1,500 and Tom can start his business.
As the government has reduced spending it can even reduce tax rates, which may increase Tom's after-tax profits. Thanks to austerity the government could also reduce its deficit. The money formerly used to finance the government deficit can now be lent to Tom for an initial investment to make the former agency's rooms suitable for a restaurant. Indeed, one of the main problems in countries such as Spain these days is that the real savings of the people are soaked up and channeled to the government via the banking system. Loans are practically unavailable for private companies, because banks use their funds to buy government bonds in order to finance the public deficit.
In the end, the question amounts to the following: Who shall determine what is produced and how? The government that uses resources for its own purposes (such as a "consumer-protection" agency, welfare programs, or wars), or entrepreneurs in a competitive process and as agents of consumers, trying to satisfy consumer wants with ever better and cheaper products (like Tom, who uses part of the resources formerly used in the government agency for his restaurant).
If you think the second option is better, austerity is the way to go. More austerity and less government spending mean fewer resources for the public sector (fewer "agencies") and more resources for the private sector, which uses them to satisfy consumer wants (more restaurants). Austerity is the solution to the problems in Europe and in the United States, as it fosters sustainable growth and reduces government deficits.
Unfortunately, GDP is a quite misleading figure. GDP is defined as the market value of all final goods and services produced in a country in a given period.
There are two minor reasons why a lower GDP may not always be a bad sign.
The first reason relates to the treatment of government expenditures. Let us imagine a government bureaucrat who licenses businesses. When he denies a license for an investment project that never comes into being, how much wealth is destroyed? Is it the expected revenues of the project or its expected profits? What if the bureaucrat has unknowingly prevented an innovation that could save the economy billions of dollars per year? It is hard to say how much wealth destruction is caused by the bureaucrat. We could just arbitrarily take his salary of $50,000 per year and subtract it from private production. GDP would be lower.
Now hold your breath. In practice, the opposite is done. Government expenditures count positively in GDP. The wealth destroying activity of the bureaucrat raises GDP by $50,000. This implies that if the government licensing agency is closed and the bureaucrat is laid off, then the immediate effect of this austerity is a fall in GDP by $50,000. Yet, this fall in GDP is a good sign for private production and the satisfaction of consumer wants.
Second, if the structure of production is distorted after an artificial boom, the restructuring also entails a temporary fall in GDP. Indeed, one could only maintain GDP if production remained unchanged. If Spain or the United States had continued to use their boom structure of production, they would have continued to build the amount of housing they did in 2007. The restructuring requires a shrinking of the housing sector, i.e., a reduced use of factors of production in this sector. Factors of production must be transferred to those sectors where they are most urgently demanded by consumers. The restructuring is not instantaneous but organized by entrepreneurs in a competitive process that is burdensome and takes time. In this transition period, when jobs are destroyed in the overblown sectors, GDP tends to fall. This fall in GDP is just a sign that the necessary restructuring is underway. The alternative would be to produce the amount of housing of 2007. If GDP did not fall sharply, it would mean that the wealth-destroying boom was continuing as it did in the years 2005–2007.
by Philipp Bagus on November 30, 2012
Many politicians and commentators such as Paul Krugman claim that Europe's problem is austerity, i.e., there is insufficient government spending. The common argument goes like this: Due to a reduction of government spending, there is insufficient demand in the economy leading to unemployment. The unemployment makes things even worse as aggregate demand falls even more, causing a fall in government revenues and an increase in government deficits. European governments pressured by Germany (which did not learn from the supposedly fateful policies of Chancellor Heinrich Brüning) then reduce government spending even further, lowering demand by laying off public employees and cutting back on government transfers. This reduces demand even more in a never ending downward spiral of misery. What can be done to break out of the spiral? The answer given by commentators is simply to end austerity, boost government spending and aggregate demand. Paul Krugman even argues in favor for a preparation against an alien invasion, which would induce government to spend more. So the story goes. But is it true?
First of all, is there really austerity in the eurozone? One would think that a person is austere when she saves, i.e., if she spends less than she earns. Well, there exists not one country in the eurozone that is austere. They all spend more than they receive in revenues.
In fact, government deficits are extremely high, at unsustainable levels, as can been seen in the following chart that portrays government deficits in percentage of GDP. Note that the figures for 2012 are what governments wish for.
Unfortunately, austerity is the necessary condition for recovery in Spain, the eurozone, and elsewhere. The reduction of government spending makes real resources available for the private sector that formerly had been absorbed by the state. Reducing government spending makes profitable new private investment projects and saves old ones from bankruptcy.
Take the following example. Tom wants to open a restaurant. He makes the following calculations. He estimates the restaurant's revenues at $10,000 per month. The expected costs are the following: $4,000 for rent; $1,000 for utilities; $2,000 for food; and $4,000 for wages. With expected revenues of $10,000 and costs of $11,000 Tom will not start his business.
Let's now assume that the government is more austere, i.e., it reduces government spending. Let's assume that the government closes a consumer-protection agency and sells the agency's building on the market. As a consequence, there is a tendency for housing prices and rents to fall. The same is true for wages. The laid-off bureaucrats search for new jobs, exerting downward pressure on wage rates. Further, the agency does not consume utilities anymore, leading toward a tendency of cheaper utilities. Tom may now rent space for his restaurant in the former agency for $3,000 as rents are coming down. His expected utility bill falls to $500, and hiring some of the former bureaucrats as dish washers and waiters reduces his wage expenditures to $3,000. Now with expected revenue at $10,000 and costs at $8,500 the expected profits amounts to $1,500 and Tom can start his business.
As the government has reduced spending it can even reduce tax rates, which may increase Tom's after-tax profits. Thanks to austerity the government could also reduce its deficit. The money formerly used to finance the government deficit can now be lent to Tom for an initial investment to make the former agency's rooms suitable for a restaurant. Indeed, one of the main problems in countries such as Spain these days is that the real savings of the people are soaked up and channeled to the government via the banking system. Loans are practically unavailable for private companies, because banks use their funds to buy government bonds in order to finance the public deficit.
In the end, the question amounts to the following: Who shall determine what is produced and how? The government that uses resources for its own purposes (such as a "consumer-protection" agency, welfare programs, or wars), or entrepreneurs in a competitive process and as agents of consumers, trying to satisfy consumer wants with ever better and cheaper products (like Tom, who uses part of the resources formerly used in the government agency for his restaurant).
If you think the second option is better, austerity is the way to go. More austerity and less government spending mean fewer resources for the public sector (fewer "agencies") and more resources for the private sector, which uses them to satisfy consumer wants (more restaurants). Austerity is the solution to the problems in Europe and in the United States, as it fosters sustainable growth and reduces government deficits.
Lower GDP?
But does austerity not at least temporarily reduce GDP and lead to a downward spiral of economic activity?Unfortunately, GDP is a quite misleading figure. GDP is defined as the market value of all final goods and services produced in a country in a given period.
There are two minor reasons why a lower GDP may not always be a bad sign.
The first reason relates to the treatment of government expenditures. Let us imagine a government bureaucrat who licenses businesses. When he denies a license for an investment project that never comes into being, how much wealth is destroyed? Is it the expected revenues of the project or its expected profits? What if the bureaucrat has unknowingly prevented an innovation that could save the economy billions of dollars per year? It is hard to say how much wealth destruction is caused by the bureaucrat. We could just arbitrarily take his salary of $50,000 per year and subtract it from private production. GDP would be lower.
Now hold your breath. In practice, the opposite is done. Government expenditures count positively in GDP. The wealth destroying activity of the bureaucrat raises GDP by $50,000. This implies that if the government licensing agency is closed and the bureaucrat is laid off, then the immediate effect of this austerity is a fall in GDP by $50,000. Yet, this fall in GDP is a good sign for private production and the satisfaction of consumer wants.
Second, if the structure of production is distorted after an artificial boom, the restructuring also entails a temporary fall in GDP. Indeed, one could only maintain GDP if production remained unchanged. If Spain or the United States had continued to use their boom structure of production, they would have continued to build the amount of housing they did in 2007. The restructuring requires a shrinking of the housing sector, i.e., a reduced use of factors of production in this sector. Factors of production must be transferred to those sectors where they are most urgently demanded by consumers. The restructuring is not instantaneous but organized by entrepreneurs in a competitive process that is burdensome and takes time. In this transition period, when jobs are destroyed in the overblown sectors, GDP tends to fall. This fall in GDP is just a sign that the necessary restructuring is underway. The alternative would be to produce the amount of housing of 2007. If GDP did not fall sharply, it would mean that the wealth-destroying boom was continuing as it did in the years 2005–2007.
Conclusion
Public austerity is a necessary condition for private flourishing and a rapid recovery. The problem of Europe (and the United States) is not too much but too little austerity — or its complete absence. A fall of GDP can be an indicator that the necessary and healthy restructuring of the economy is underway.Captivated by Japan's ‘Daidougei' - Street Performance Art
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Tiferet Israel synagogue to be rebuilt. Muslims seething.
Posted: 29 Nov 2012 09:00 AM PST
From JPost:Here's a model of what the rebuilt synagogue, destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948, will look like:The Jerusalem Municipality awarded initial approval to a plan to rebuild the Tiferet Israel synagogue in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter, a magnificent domed synagogue from the 19th century which was destroyed in the 1948 War of Independence.
The project will recreate the three-story-tall synagogue as well as the iconic dome on the top, with only minor changes to the original, such as the introduction of an elevator to make the building more accessible.
On Tuesday, the municipality’s Local Planning and Building Committee approved the plan for the next step of the process, where it must receive the approval of the Interior Ministry.
An anonymous donor who has been active in previous rebuilding projects in the Old City donated nearly NIS 50 million needed for reconstruction, said Shlomi Attias, the Old City project manager for The Company for the Reconstruction and Development of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem Ltd. (JQDC).
The JQDC is a public company under the auspices of the Construction and Housing Ministry.
The synagogue is located just a few hundred meters from the Western Wall Plaza, in the same plaza as the Hurva.
Ashkenazi Hassidim bought the land for Tiferet Israel Synagogue in 1843, though the building wasn’t inaugurated until 1872. The synagogue is also known as the Nissan Bek synagogue, after its founder.
The Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation is freaking out, claiming that the building is being built on the ruins of an Islamic chapel. (Isn't everything?) It also says that this synagogue, along with the Hurva and Ohel Yitzchak, are on areas belonging to the Islamic Waqf. (Isn't everything?)
I once made a video of a "flyover" of Jerusalem in the 1930s, based on high-resolution photographs. Tiferet Israel is prominently featured, right near the Hurva Synagogue.
It is worth mentioning that besides the fact that Muslims object to synagogues in Jerusalem altogether, they are especially peeved that this one - together with Hurva - are so tall, giving the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa mosque competition in the Old City skyline (the Jewish Quarter is situated on a hill.)
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Ayalon: Israel bound less and less by previous pacts
Ayalon: Israel bound less and less to deals made with PA
LAST UPDATED: 11/29/2012 09:42
Deputy
Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said Thursday that the Palestinian
Authority's bid for statehood at the United Nations constitutes a
"significant breach" of past agreements with Israel, and warned that
Jerusalem would take measures to respond to the move, according to Army
Radio.
"Israel is bound less and less to deals made with the Palestinians, and we will act in accordance with our own interests," Ayalon said. "This is a blatant, unilateral act, a significant breach of (past) accords."
"Israel is bound less and less to deals made with the Palestinians, and we will act in accordance with our own interests," Ayalon said. "This is a blatant, unilateral act, a significant breach of (past) accords."
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
End of occupation = end of Israel
Robert Serry - UN Envoy to Middle East
" Hamas calls all of Israel '"occupied,"so when he says the end goal is the end of occupation he means it is the end of Israel."
" Hamas calls all of Israel '"occupied,"so when he says the end goal is the end of occupation he means it is the end of Israel."
Monday, November 26, 2012
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Raising Min Wage to $12.50 Costs You 15 cents
Protesters rallied against the retailer’s low-wages and working conditions outside of 1,000 Walmart stores across 46 states, according to the union-backed group OUR Walmart —all on one of the biggest sale days of the year.
Despite the disruption, Walmart executives boasted its “best ever Black Friday,” and said that “less than 50 associates participated” in the protests nationwide. “In fact, this year, roughly the same number of associates missed their scheduled shift as last year,” Walmart CEO Bill Simon said in a statement.
The protester’s focus on Walmart’s low wages—which, according to leaked documents, can be a base pay as low as $8.00 an hour—concerned skeptics who worried about the costs to consumers should the retailer’s “always low-prices” suddenly rise in order to accommodate higher worker pay.
“Walmart’s prices aren’t just a little bit lower, they’re substantially lower,” Peter Suderman of Reason said Saturday on Up w/ Chris Hayes. ”This is a huge boon to the lowest fifth of the American consumer—to the people who are the least well off in the country.”
Fellow Up panelist Douglas Rushkoff countered Suderman’s argument, saying that local towns and communities were actually “net-poorer” due to Walmart’s “extractive force.”
“The cost of those prices is that you end up with Walmart workers on welfare rolls,”Rushkoff said.
Suderman followed up the segment with a 17-point “truthbomb” via Twitter with a take-down of anti-Walmart sentiment:
Raise prices to pay for increased wages and you cut into the store’s huge low-price benefits for the poor. It’s regressive.But according to a study by Demos, if retailers, not just Walmart, raised all hourly wages to at least $12.50 an hour, it would be a “private sector, retail-led stimulus.” As the study explains, the cost burden of raising the worker wages would be roughly 15 cents more per shopping trip.
“Is it necessary to have low wages in order to have low prices?” Demos’ Heather McGhee asked rhetorically on Up last week. Her answer: no.
(Storify h/t Lachlan Markay)
Egypt threatened to abrogate 'peace treaty' if there was a Gaza ground op
Prior to Wednesday's cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, Egypt threatened that an IDF ground operation into the Gaza Strip would endanger the peace treaty between Jerusalem and Cairo, Channel 2 reported on Thursday.This ought to make Israel think again about the value of pieces of paper that claim to bring 'peace.'
According to the report, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi refused to speak directly with Israeli representatives during the cease-fire negotiations, despite the US urging him to do so.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
Black Sabbath-War Pigs (set to political footage)
As this was being posted, Hamas broke the latest cease fire with Israel.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Monday, November 12, 2012
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Pamela Geller on ABC News covering Pro-Israel Bus ads
Mark Matthews of ABC News (KGO TV), San Francisco, did a news report on our pro-Israel bus ads that just hit the streets. In it, Matthews proselytizes for Islam, redefines jihad, and makes a bit of a fool of himself. He falls over himself to get the Islamic perspective, but runs no counter to their claims. He spent a good deal of time during our interview arguing about the word "savage." I explained that any war on innocent civilians was savagery. Matthews countered that both the US and Israel have killed innocent civilians and I shot back that the US and Israel never target innocent civilians, ever. The deaths of innocent civilians are the tragic consequence of war sometimes. The war on Israel, OTOH, is a war on innocent civilians. Needless to say, that never made it onto the broadcast interview.
You can tweet Matthews @MatthewsABC7. He has already blocked me after I tweeted this:
@MatthewsABC7 Why only Muslim &anti-Israel voices in your news segment?Why no pro-Israel voices?Your bias is ugly.You redefine jihad #toolCheck out Matthews' report here: Pro-Israel ads on Muni buses spark criticism
SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- San Francisco's Municipal Transportation Agency has a policy against political ads on its buses, but an ad being displayed now comes pretty close. The ad says, "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad."Matthews says "truth is in the eye of the beholder." Wrong. You are entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts. Truth is the recogniton of reality. Any war against innocent civilians is savage.
James Ashburn was surprised when he saw his bus roll up with the ad on the side. "It really struck me as an inappropriate ad to be on a city bus," he said. Ashburn took a picture of the ad and sent it to ABC7 News via uReport. He thought the ad crossed a line. "No matter what side you're on, you should not describe your opponent as a savage," he said.
The pro-Israel ad was purchased by the American Freedom Defense Initiative run by Pamela Geller. "The reason I wanted to run these ads was to counter the anti-Israel ads that were running in various cities across the country in New York, in D.C., on San Francisco BART," she said. If you don't remember any anti-Israel ads on BART, that's understandable. It has been a year since an ad ran calling on the U.S. to cut military aid to Israel. "It was a fallacious and dangerous message and it had to be countered with the truth," Geller said.
The truth being in the eye of the beholder, ABC7 News showed the ad to Muslim's going into Friday prayers at a San Francisco mosque. Adam Kennard called it propaganda. Ted Oriqat pointed out that the ad distorts the meaning of jihad. "Jihad, it doesn't mean killing people or anything like that," he said. And Oriqat is correct. Jihad means "struggle" and is frequently used as in "striving towards the way of God."
"No matter what side you're on, you should not describe your opponent as a savage,"Really? Decapitations, honor killing, dismemberment, clitorectomies deserve ..... respect?
The bus message didn't sit very well with the city system in New York. They refused to run them and Gellen took the transit authority to court. "And interestingly enough, the day that I won, was the day that San Francisco approved my ads that are currently running on your buses," Geller said.
A coincidence? Not according to Muni's spokesman Paul Rose. "In this specific case, litigation was brought to this organization and the transit agency lost," he told ABC7 News. So, the buses with the signs will continue to roll for at least the next four weeks. "If I had my way, they'd be in every city in the United States of America and if I can get the funding, that's exactly what's going to happen," Geller says.
Asked how this particular ad is not considered political in light of Muni's no-politics policy, Rose struggled to answer. However, the legal action and the fact that the New York MTA has already lost in court have had an impact.
UPDATE: From David Wood:, ACTs17:
Both the media and Muslim propagandists keep telling us that "Jihad" simply means "struggle," and that it often refers to "struggling" against one's own desires. They like to pretend that Muhammad didn't tell his followers which type of "Jihad" he had in mind when he commanded them to wage Jihad:
Sunan Ibn Majah 2794—It was narrated that Amr bin Abasah said: “I came to the Prophet and said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, which Jihad is best?’ He said: ‘(That of a man) whose blood is shed and his horse is wounded.’”
So the best "Jihad," according to Muhammad, involves bloodshed. This sort of Jihad is so essential to Islam that a Muslim is said to be "deficient" if he doesn't have visible wounds on his body (as a result of fighting non-Muslims):
Sunan Ibn Majah 2763—It was narrated from Abu Hurairah that the Messenger of Allah said: “Whoever meets Allah with no mark on him (as a result of fighting) in His cause, he will meet Him with a deficiency.”
Indeed, Muhammad told his followers that Muslims who want to live in peace are hypocrites:
Sunan An-Nasa’i 3099—It was narrated from Abu Hurairah that the Prophet said: “Whoever dies without having fought or having thought of fighting, he dies on one of the branches of hypocrisy.”
For more on the journalistic integrity (or lack thereof) of ABC News, see my video "Whitewashing Islam":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ5Bwj3iTrg
In the Trenches of Democracy
In the Trenches of Democracy: Reflections from a Milwaukee Polling Site
“Good,” she said. “Two of my people have had their phone numbers changed and another two aren’t answering.”
Voters line up outside Milwaukee polling place.I
had signed up to be a bilingual election worker for the City of
Milwaukee. My assignment was at a small, one-room pavilion at a South
Side park that seemed little more than a glorified playground.The pavilion’s outside light wasn’t working, bolstering my sense that this particular electoral machine was not well oiled. My husband, who had an hour before he had to be at work, came in with me.
The one-room polling station was jammed — seemingly haphazardly — with tables, folding chairs and assorted park-related equipment, including a huge Weber grill. The polls were to open in less than an hour.
The polling station’s two chief inspectors were frantically calling missing workers and figuring out how to bring order to the chaos. My husband was pressed into service to help move the tables. I was handed thumbtacks and tape to put up necessary notices in English and Spanish.
“Welcome to the bowels of democracy,” I joked to my husband.
Within the hour, the pavilion was transformed. There were still a few rough edges but it had become a functioning polling station with all the necessary stations, forms and signs. All the poll workers had arrived.
“Hear Ye, Here Ye, The Polls Are Now Open,” the election chief proclaimed on the dot at 7 a.m. Lines had already formed. People were anxious to vote. Our day’s work began.
More than 15 hours later, at 9:45 p.m., I finally left the polling station.
I can’t remember the last time I worked so hard for so long.
I can’t remember the last time I worked with such a fascinating, humble, inspiring, and diverse group of people.
Life in the Trenches of Democracy
Starting at about 9 p.m., my daughter had started sending rapid-fire text messages from a New York City sports bar that had five big-screens, each one tuned to a different network.
“MSNBC is calling it for Obama!” she texted at one point.
“Elizabeth Warren won! Tammy Baldwin won!” another text read. “And all the ‘rape’ apologists lost!”
Cell phones were not allowed in the polling stations, so I had had no clue what was going on with the elections. Nor had I received those heartening text messages as they came in. As my husband and I drove home from the polling station, I called my daughter.
“Mahalia, life in the trenches of democracy is fascinating,” I explained. “But I feel like a soldier in a World War 2 foxhole, slogging away with no clue if the good guys are winning or losing. Tell me more.”
I don’t like war analogies, but I felt this one was appropriate.
What’s more, I was proud to have been a foot soldier. Reading analyses in the New York Times and following Nate Silver’s blogs had been a part of my life for weeks. But in the end, I learned much more about the workings of democracy at this little known, off-the-radar polling site on Milwaukee’s near South Side.
Above all, I learned how deeply people believe in the right to vote. They may not always exercise that right. But they want to protect it.
In the end, new rules adopted by the Republican legislature that complicated voting procedures ended up back-firing. (Wisconsin adopted one of the country’s strictest Voter ID laws in 2011, with the most restrictive measures in abeyance due to court challenges.)
In the 2008 presidential election, 275,042 ballots were cast in the City of Milwaukee, for an 80.33 percent voter turnout. Obama/Biden won 77.82 percent of the vote, McCain/Palin won 21.03 percent.
In 2012, 288,459 ballots were cast in the City of Milwaukee, for an 87.24 percent turnout. Obama/Biden won 79.27 percent, Romney/Ryan won 19.72 percent.
My Fellow Poll Workers
My fellow poll workers were a diverse group. There were several older women (including me, with my grey hair) some black, some white, some Latino. There was the bilingual election chief who wore a sports jacket and the coolest silver-toed cowboy boots I have seen in a long time.
A middle-aged mother and her twenty-something daughter worked side by side, both of them fulfilling the South Side stereotype of white working-class women who won’t take gruff from anyone and who speak in one volume: loud. An older black man dealt with the pavilion’s minimal heat by wearing his Green Bay Packers jacket and hat the entire day. A bilingual young woman who had graduated from Pulaski High School worked with me at a crazy-busy table for voters who had a change of address or who had never voted before.
Not to be forgotten: the white guy who had lived in the neighborhood for more than 30 years and knew it so well that he could immediately tell people, based on their address, which of the three ward tables they should vote at.
We were slammed with non-stop work the minute the polls opened. We barely had time to go to the bathroom, let alone eat decently or take a break and relax. Never once did I hear anyone complain.
In many ways, our little polling site was a microcosm of Milwaukee. Whites were in the minority of voters, but still a significant percentage. About a third were African American — a fascinating development in a neighborhood that 40 years ago was a center of white resistance to open housing. A number of voters spoke Spanish, such as the gentleman who came in and explained that, at 60 years of age, he had decided to vote for the first time in his life. No one looked like they had much extra money to spend at the end of the week.
There were as many fascinating stories that day as there were voters. One woman impressed me the most.
Sometime in the early afternoon, at a point when I was feeling like a factory line worker and people were becoming a blur, a thirty-something African-American woman sat quietly in front of me. Without a word, she handed me information explaining her situation. I quickly looked it over.
It suddenly dawned me: the woman was a victim of domestic abuse. By law, she had the right to a confidential voter address, and she had taken the necessary steps. To be on the safe side, she had brought in a letter from a transitional housing center documenting necessary information. I looked at the letter’s date: Nov. 5, 2012.
“You went and got this letter yesterday?” I asked the woman, buying time as my mind processed the various hoops she must have gone through.
“Yes,” she said, pride and dignity in her voice. “I wanted to make sure I would be able to vote today.”
Hey, Rush Limbaugh: 'Starting an Abortion Industry' Won't Win You Female Voters
Rush Limbaugh speaks in Missouri.But
some introspection was probably in order, particularly with the
question – soon to become the dominant question in American major
party-politics – of what the Republicans have to do to do better with
women and minorities. They dominated with white males, but lagged with
almost all other groups.Rush addressed the question with a long, passionate soliloquy. It was fascinating. Let me excerpt it here. He began with the difficult (for him) admission that his party is not doing well with minority groups. The emphasis here is mine:
It's being said once once again that the Republicans have an outreach problem, that we don't have Hispanics, we don't have blacks, and we don't have women and it's... Okay, fine, we don't, what are we supposed to do?From there he self-apostrophizes, asking what the Republicans need to do to get those votes. He answers the question in a mocking tone that in fact is the entire source of his problem – the very answer to his question is drop the freaking sarcasm when you talk about minorities and minority issues, and you just might get their votes – but he's so psychologically well-defended that this never occurs to him, and he just plows on. Note the excellent homage here to the "Get the fuck out of here/No, I'm serious!" routine from Beverly Hills Cop:
Are we supposed to embrace amnesty? No, no, no, I'm being serious! We have achieved [sic], brilliant, intelligent, accomplished African Americans, Hispanics, you name it – throughout the Republican party. It doesn't count! It doesn't count with the media, it doesn't count with the Democratic party, it doesn't count with Obama supporters.Here he pauses, then goes on some more, wondering, hilariously, why it isn't enough just to have Condi Rice in the tent. Again, the emphasis is mine:
It doesn't count. Why not? Why, putting it coarsely, doesn't the Republican Party get credit for Condoleeza Rice? Why doesn't the Republican Party get credit for Marco Rubio? Why doesn't the Republican Party get credit for Suzanne Martinez...?This next part is awesome. He again asks the "isn't it enough to have Condoleeza Rice" question, and here even supplies an answer – it should be enough, because, get this: she's not just black and a woman, she's WELL-SPOKEN! He actually plays the "well-spoken" card:
I could throw these examples out there for you all afternoon. Why don't those people, the Marco Rubios, the Alan Wests... What a great man, what a great American, what a great role model! Clarence Thomas! Herman Cain! None of it counts. Tell me the Republican party doesn't have outreach – we do!
But what are supposed to do, in order to get the Hispanic vote now? Does that mean, open the borders and embrace the illegals? I want you to think about this. So – the Republican establishment, does that mean, if we're not getting the female vote, do we become pro-choice? Do we have to start giving out birth control pills? Is that what we have to do?
Okay, if that's what we have to do, pretend we're doing it. Pretend that in the next couple of weeks, couple of months, the Republican Party announces that it is for contraception being given out by the state, and in fact the Catholic Church must give contraception away and make abortion available. Are we going to get the votes Obama got last night. We're not? Really, we're not?The fish is swimming with the line way out to sea at this point . . . Just let him run, he's tiring himself out:
We won't. But we're not getting the votes that Obama got last night because we have Condoleeza Rice – and she is a pinnacle of achievement, and intelligent, and well-spoken . . . You can't find a more accomplished person. Marco Rubio. And really, speaking in street lingo, we're not getting credit for it. Now is it that Republicans are looking for credit? And it's not perceived as genuine? Are these people perceived as tokens?
And the white Republican establishment is putting these people out front, but they really don't believe that Marco Rubio is that good of a deal. Window dressing! If that's the perception of Obama voters, than how do we change that?And he concludes here by offering mock suggestions for how to win back the votes lost in such huge numbers Tuesday night among almost all groups but white men:
Youth, the youth vote! I tell you what we should do, let's announce, starting around Christmastime, so that we can get close to being Santa Claus ourselves, let's announce that we are for the legalization of marijuana, and that as a party we're in favor of forgiving all student loans . . . Is that how we do it?There's been a lot of hand-wringing among conservatives of the Rush/Hannity school in the last few days, a lot of concern about this outreach question, and honestly, the tone of the discussion is beginning to sound like the last days of a failed 1950s marriage. The husband who's gone all day at work comes home and throws his hands up in the air in mock frustration: what do you want from me, another Cadillac? Another fur coat? I just got you new shoes last week!
All these examples . . . Latinos! We're not going to get the Latino vote by opening the borders and saying, you know what? Let anybody in who wants to come in.
Women. Let's start our own abortion industry. Let's go out and get the women's vote. I just want you to think, would that work?
And the wife, who's loved this man for 20 years despite his abject stupidity, just sighs. All she wants her husband to do is listen to her, or take a day off work sometime and take her for a drive in the country, or make some spontaneous show of affection, maybe popping home for lunch like in the old days – just some evidence that he's even faintly aware of what's going on in her head. But when they try to talk it out, things just get worse, because in his very manner of asking her what's wrong, all hubby does is reveal that he thinks of his wife entirely as a nagging, financial parasite who's always on his ass about something.
Similarly, the fact that so many Republicans this week think that all Hispanics care about is amnesty, all women want is abortions (and lots of them) and all teenagers want is to sit on their couches and smoke tons of weed legally, that tells you everything you need to know about the hopeless, anachronistic cluelessness of the modern Republican Party. A lot of these people, believe it or not, would respond positively, or at least with genuine curiosity, to the traditional conservative message of self-reliance and fiscal responsibility.
But modern Republicans will never be able to spread that message effectively, because they have so much of their own collective identity wrapped up in the belief that they're surrounded by free-loading, job-averse parasites who not only want to smoke weed and have recreational abortions all day long, but want hardworking white Christians like them to pay the tab. Their whole belief system, which is really an endless effort at congratulating themselves for how hard they work compared to everyone else (by the way, the average "illegal," as Rush calls them, does more real work in 24 hours than people like Rush and me do in a year), is inherently insulting to everyone outside the tent – and you can't win votes when you're calling people lazy, stoned moochers.
It's hard to say whether it's good or bad that the Rushes of the world are too clueless to realize that it's their attitude, not their policies, that is screwing them most with minority voters. If they were self-aware at all, Mitt Romney would probably be president right now. So I guess we should be grateful that the light doesn't look like it will ever go on. But wow, is their angst tough to listen to.
© 2012 Rolling Stone
Robert Reich: 'Trickle-down economics is bunk — the rich do not create jobs' - Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer // Current TV
Robert Reich: 'Trickle-down economics is bunk — the rich do not create jobs' - Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer // Current TV
Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, talks to “Viewpoint” host Eliot Spitzer about the impending fiscal cliff and House Speaker John Boehner’s pledge to reduce the deficit and not raise taxes on anyone, including the rich.
Reich argues Boehner’s strategy couldn’t possibly reduce the deficit: “Even if they were to come up somewhere down the road with some loophole closers, some deduction limits, that’s still mathematically not going to do it.”
“The middle class creates jobs through their spending, through their consumption. That’s the way an economy works.”
Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, talks to “Viewpoint” host Eliot Spitzer about the impending fiscal cliff and House Speaker John Boehner’s pledge to reduce the deficit and not raise taxes on anyone, including the rich.
Reich argues Boehner’s strategy couldn’t possibly reduce the deficit: “Even if they were to come up somewhere down the road with some loophole closers, some deduction limits, that’s still mathematically not going to do it.”
“The middle class creates jobs through their spending, through their consumption. That’s the way an economy works.”
Corporations Lay-Off 1000's b/c Obama Won
OBAMA REELECTION TRIGGERS MASSIVE LAYOFFS ACROSS AMERICA - 2012 Presidential Election - Fox Nation
The Mass Firings Begin Stella Paul, American Thinker
Obama was "fired up" and so were the voters, and so now, the mass firings begin. Here's a collection of today's headlines. Please say a prayer for the families who will be suffering. Had Romney won, many of these companies would now be hiring.
- Teco Coal officials announce layoffs
- Momentive Inc plans temporary layoffs for 150
- Wilkes-Barre officials to announce mandatory layoffs
- 600 layoffs at Groupon
- More layoffs announced at Aniston Weapons Incinerator
- Murray Energy confirms 150 layoffs at 3 subsidiaries
- 130 laid off in Minnesota dairy plant closure
- Stanford brake plant to lay off 75
- Turbocare, Oce to lay off more than 220 workers
- ATI plans to lay off 172 workers in North Richland Hills
- SpaceX claims its first victims as Rocketdyne lays off 100
- Providence Journal lays off 23 full-time employees
- CVPH lays off 17
- New Energy lays off 40 employees
- 102 Utah miners laid off because of 'war on coal', company says
- US Cellular drops Chicago, cuts 640 jobs
- Career Education to cut 900 jobs, close 23 campuses
- Vestas to cut 3,000 more jobs
- First Energy to cut 400 jobs by 2016
- Mine owner blames Obama for layoffs (54 fired last night)
- Canceled program costs 115 jobs at Ohio air base
- AMD trims Austin workforce - 400 jobs slashed
- 100 workers lose jobs as Caterpillar closes plant in Minnesota
- Exide to lay off 150 workers
- TE Connectivity to close Guilford plant, lay off 620
- More Layoffs for Major Wind Company (3,000 jobs cut)
- Cigna to lay off 1,300 workers worldwide
- Ameridose to lay off hundreds of workers
Friday, November 9, 2012
Syria: The fog of media war - Listening Post - Al Jazeera English
The fog of Syria's media war - Listening Post - Al Jazeera English
This week on Listening Post: Syria and the media narratives at war. Plus, working the graveyard shift – an insight into the art of obituary writing.
The fighting in Syria is now mirrored on the airwaves, with the principles fighting to control the narrative. This is no longer a struggle between Syrian state TV and the pan-Arab news channels like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya that the Assad government has called hostile. The unrest has spawned an array of new news outlets that have waded into the fray, including nine satellite channels on the opposition side alone. There are also new pro-Assad channels being readied in Syria and then there are recently launched outlets like the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen which says it wants to counter the coverage on channels like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya.
In our New Divide we look at the competing narratives in Syria’s propaganda battle.
In this week’s News Bytes: the Filipino Supreme Court delays the implementation of a controversial cybercrime law; troubling times for Israel’s newspaper industry as one of its oldest publications faces closure and another faces cutbacks; an Iranian conservative magazine is shut down after running a provocative cartoon that some people deemed offensive; and a high profile Argentinian journalist covering Venezuela’s election says he was detained and accused of spying while trying to leave the country.
The art of obituary writing
They call it working in the morgue. It is the newspaper obituary desk that has editors checking in whenever someone famous checks out. Those extended obits do not always get written after someone dies, many are on file, ready at a moment’s notice. And it is not as though the only obits ready to go are about elderly newsmakers. It does not matter how old you are, a good obit editor is supposed to be prepared for anything.
In this week’s feature, Listening Post’s Nicholas Muirhead takes a look at the art of obituary writing, the dos and do nots of the craft.
Our web video of the week: Finally, fathers out there may recognise the kind of character in this next video. He is the guy who makes other dads feel completely inadequate. Back in August, Ron Fugelseth took his son Jayden out into the California desert. His plan was to launch Jayden’s toy train into the stratosphere using just a helium balloon, a mini HD camera to record the flight, and a GPS equipped phone on board for tracking purposes. The result is a charming story involving three characters, father, son and toy train that has raked up more than 3.3 million views online. We hope you enjoy the show.
This week on Listening Post: Syria and the media narratives at war. Plus, working the graveyard shift – an insight into the art of obituary writing.
The fighting in Syria is now mirrored on the airwaves, with the principles fighting to control the narrative. This is no longer a struggle between Syrian state TV and the pan-Arab news channels like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya that the Assad government has called hostile. The unrest has spawned an array of new news outlets that have waded into the fray, including nine satellite channels on the opposition side alone. There are also new pro-Assad channels being readied in Syria and then there are recently launched outlets like the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen which says it wants to counter the coverage on channels like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya.
In our New Divide we look at the competing narratives in Syria’s propaganda battle.
In this week’s News Bytes: the Filipino Supreme Court delays the implementation of a controversial cybercrime law; troubling times for Israel’s newspaper industry as one of its oldest publications faces closure and another faces cutbacks; an Iranian conservative magazine is shut down after running a provocative cartoon that some people deemed offensive; and a high profile Argentinian journalist covering Venezuela’s election says he was detained and accused of spying while trying to leave the country.
The art of obituary writing
They call it working in the morgue. It is the newspaper obituary desk that has editors checking in whenever someone famous checks out. Those extended obits do not always get written after someone dies, many are on file, ready at a moment’s notice. And it is not as though the only obits ready to go are about elderly newsmakers. It does not matter how old you are, a good obit editor is supposed to be prepared for anything.
In this week’s feature, Listening Post’s Nicholas Muirhead takes a look at the art of obituary writing, the dos and do nots of the craft.
Our web video of the week: Finally, fathers out there may recognise the kind of character in this next video. He is the guy who makes other dads feel completely inadequate. Back in August, Ron Fugelseth took his son Jayden out into the California desert. His plan was to launch Jayden’s toy train into the stratosphere using just a helium balloon, a mini HD camera to record the flight, and a GPS equipped phone on board for tracking purposes. The result is a charming story involving three characters, father, son and toy train that has raked up more than 3.3 million views online. We hope you enjoy the show.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Pat Robertson Election Special: "What is Going On with the American People?" - YouTube
Pat Robertson Election Special: "What is Going On with the American People?" - YouTube
The Christian Broadcasting Network put on an election night special and host Pat Robertson appeared to be dumbfounded that President Obama won re-election. Robertson’s guests included Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard, John Fund of the Wall Street Journal, Regent University vice president Paul Bonicelli and Romney adviser Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice, the legal group Robertson founded. Barnes reassured Robertson that even if Obama wins, the President “hardly has a mandate for anything” because “this was a status quo election,” as apparently Barnes thinks any incumbent who gets re-elected doesn’t have a mandate. But Sekulow said that Obama will likely appoint two or three justices to the Supreme Court and will use the power of the executive branch to push new “encroachments on liberty and freedom.”
Robertson, who throughout the program held out hope that Karl Rove’s prediction that Romney could win Ohio would materialize, was stunned that Obama was the winner: “What have they got? He doesn’t seem to have any program and yet he’s been able to win a re-election, what is going on with the American people?” Bonicelli said that Americans will spend their next four years “regretting this decision” and Robertson warned that the U.S. is looking more like Western Europe and even Zaire.
Watch highlights here:
Of course, Robertson should not have been surprised since earlier this year God told him who would win the election.
Robertson, who throughout the program held out hope that Karl Rove’s prediction that Romney could win Ohio would materialize, was stunned that Obama was the winner: “What have they got? He doesn’t seem to have any program and yet he’s been able to win a re-election, what is going on with the American people?” Bonicelli said that Americans will spend their next four years “regretting this decision” and Robertson warned that the U.S. is looking more like Western Europe and even Zaire.
Watch highlights here:
Of course, Robertson should not have been surprised since earlier this year God told him who would win the election.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Election Day Sucked
So it's finally here – the big day. After eighteen months of
relentless, ear-splitting propaganda, with thousands, if not tens of
thousands, of reporters humping the horse-race (jumping on every single
poll like heavily-panting boy-dogs with their little red wieners
showing) and day after day swinging the heavy horseshit-hammer of Thor,
braining us with one meaningless, made-up non-controversy after another –
after all that angst and stress and directionless aggression, it’s
finally going to end.
That it's all going to be over finally, thank God for that. But today will still go down as a truly sad day, no matter who wins.
Years from now, when we look back at these last days and weeks before this 2012 election, what we're going to remember is how intensely millions of Americans hated during this time, how many shameless and dishonorable lies were told as the race tightened (we scratched and clawed at each other like sewer rats over every absurd factual dispute, finding ways to shriek at each other even over things that by definition are nobody's fault, even over acts of God like Hurricane Sandy) and how reflexively people on opposite sides of the race disbelieved each other and laid blame at each others' feet over just about every issue, important or (more often) not.
People who live in other countries, who grew up in the third world or live now in terminally wobbling mob states of the ex-Communist variety, they must look at our behavior now in election years and think we're crazy. You have to have lived in a country with real problems and real instability to realize this, but life doesn't change too terribly much in America no matter which party wins the presidency – not real change, the way people in the rest of the world understand real political change, i.e. in terms of reprisals and collapsed currencies and assassinations and other such disasters. For most of us, our day-to-day lives won't change a lick no matter who wins tonight. If we just turned off our cable channels and stayed off the net, it would take months, maybe years, for most of us to guess who won.
So all this freaking out and vicious invective-trading looks nuts from the outside: it looks like we're making up reasons to hate and fear each other, summoning the language of violent civil unrest with a hedonistic zeal that only people who haven't experienced the real thing could possibly enjoy.
What's become clear in the last few weeks is that the last real taboo in America is admitting that the world isn't going to end if the other guy gets elected. The corollary to that taboo is an apparent new national prohibition against having even the slightest faith in the essential patriotism of the other side.
When push comes to shove, we all should know most Americans want the same things, but just disagree on how to get there, which is why it should be okay to not panic if the other party wins. If some foreign agent attacks us, I seriously doubt a president Mitt Romney would wave the white flag and invite the enemy in. Right? He'll try his best as Commander-in-chief, just like Obama has, and just like Bush did, and Clinton did, and Reagan did and so on.
That should be the way we think. We should be confident that whoever wins has our collective best interests at heart, even if we don't agree with his or her ideology, the same way we reflexively assume that the pilot of any plane we board doesn't want to fly us into a mountain.
But we don't make that assumption about our politicians anymore. We don't believe the other side would have our backs even in an emergency. People today on both sides are genuinely terrified of a wrong outcome in this election. They've been whipped into a state of panic – people everywhere are freaking out and muttering to themselves and firing off vitriolic emails. That's incredibly sad. As a member of the media, I feel sick about it. I think all of us in this business owe America a hug, or something . . . All of this has gone too far, and man, we'd better pray this doesn't end in a 2000-style mess tonight. Year 2000 America seems like a veritable Buddha of perfect composure compared to the already-terminally-pissed, stress-crazed populace that has been dragged to the final lap of this terrible contest. Like crime victims, we deserve closure. Can we at least have that?
That it's all going to be over finally, thank God for that. But today will still go down as a truly sad day, no matter who wins.
Years from now, when we look back at these last days and weeks before this 2012 election, what we're going to remember is how intensely millions of Americans hated during this time, how many shameless and dishonorable lies were told as the race tightened (we scratched and clawed at each other like sewer rats over every absurd factual dispute, finding ways to shriek at each other even over things that by definition are nobody's fault, even over acts of God like Hurricane Sandy) and how reflexively people on opposite sides of the race disbelieved each other and laid blame at each others' feet over just about every issue, important or (more often) not.
People who live in other countries, who grew up in the third world or live now in terminally wobbling mob states of the ex-Communist variety, they must look at our behavior now in election years and think we're crazy. You have to have lived in a country with real problems and real instability to realize this, but life doesn't change too terribly much in America no matter which party wins the presidency – not real change, the way people in the rest of the world understand real political change, i.e. in terms of reprisals and collapsed currencies and assassinations and other such disasters. For most of us, our day-to-day lives won't change a lick no matter who wins tonight. If we just turned off our cable channels and stayed off the net, it would take months, maybe years, for most of us to guess who won.
So all this freaking out and vicious invective-trading looks nuts from the outside: it looks like we're making up reasons to hate and fear each other, summoning the language of violent civil unrest with a hedonistic zeal that only people who haven't experienced the real thing could possibly enjoy.
What's become clear in the last few weeks is that the last real taboo in America is admitting that the world isn't going to end if the other guy gets elected. The corollary to that taboo is an apparent new national prohibition against having even the slightest faith in the essential patriotism of the other side.
When push comes to shove, we all should know most Americans want the same things, but just disagree on how to get there, which is why it should be okay to not panic if the other party wins. If some foreign agent attacks us, I seriously doubt a president Mitt Romney would wave the white flag and invite the enemy in. Right? He'll try his best as Commander-in-chief, just like Obama has, and just like Bush did, and Clinton did, and Reagan did and so on.
That should be the way we think. We should be confident that whoever wins has our collective best interests at heart, even if we don't agree with his or her ideology, the same way we reflexively assume that the pilot of any plane we board doesn't want to fly us into a mountain.
But we don't make that assumption about our politicians anymore. We don't believe the other side would have our backs even in an emergency. People today on both sides are genuinely terrified of a wrong outcome in this election. They've been whipped into a state of panic – people everywhere are freaking out and muttering to themselves and firing off vitriolic emails. That's incredibly sad. As a member of the media, I feel sick about it. I think all of us in this business owe America a hug, or something . . . All of this has gone too far, and man, we'd better pray this doesn't end in a 2000-style mess tonight. Year 2000 America seems like a veritable Buddha of perfect composure compared to the already-terminally-pissed, stress-crazed populace that has been dragged to the final lap of this terrible contest. Like crime victims, we deserve closure. Can we at least have that?
Less than Great Expectations
Ezra Klein analyzes Obama's speech, which can be viewed in full above:
The Obama campaign found that their key voters were turned off by soaring rhetoric and big plans. They’d lowered their expectations, and they responded better when Obama appeared to have lowered his expectations, too. And so he did. The candidate of hope and change became the candidate of modest plans and achievable goals. Rather than stopping the rise of the oceans — which sounded rather more fantastical before Sandy — Obama promised to train more teachers and boost manufacturing jobs.
What you saw [last night], however, was that Obama didn’t much like being that guy. He still wants to be the guy he was in 2008. He still wants to inspire and to unite. He still wants Americans to feel that the arc of history is bending under their pressure. He still wants to talk about climate change and election reform and other problems that the Senate is not especially eager to solve.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Saturday, November 3, 2012
The 47% Wants to Work
This is what the 47% looks like
2:25 pm on 11/02/2012
Brooklyn commuters wait in long, snaking line to board a shuttle to midtown Manhattan.
Without subway service, all of these people were forced to take the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s shuttles.
Some people reported waiting in line for up to three hours. But they also told WNBC-TV reporter Katherine Creag that they wanted to try to get back to their jobs. Most said they craved a sense of normalcy. Others said they just didn’t like being away from the job for more than a couple of days.
We can’t know how many of these people could have taken the day off. Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked all city workers to report for duty, as long as it was safe to do so.
We do know that the majority of the people who stood in the snaking lines around Barclays Center decided they wanted to work today. They decided it was worth the hassle and the wait.
But back in May, Mitt Romney accused 47% of Americans of being “victims” who “believe they’re entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”
Could Mitt Romney honestly look at these pictures and call any of these people “entitled” as they wait in line to go to work?
Brooklyn commuters wait to board shuttles at Barclays Center (11/1/12) (rachelinbrooklyn.tumbler)
But this isn’t about “victims.” It runs totally counter to the way Mitt Romney thinks 47% of Americans normally behave. And here’s the bottom line: this is how New York gets to work.
Tax Cuts for Rich do not Spur Economic Growth
GOP kills official report finding tax cuts for rich don’t boost growth
7:00 am on 11/02/2012
U.S.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks to delegates during the
third session of the Republican National Convention. (Photo:
REUTERS/Mike Segar)
After pressure from the GOP, a nonpartisan congressional agency withdrew a report that found tax cuts for the rich don’t spur economic growth and instead worsen inequality. Staffers at the agency tell MSNBC.com they’re up in arms over the move. And top Democrats, too, want answers.
“The Republicans have been pushing this argument that the top marginal tax rate has this huge effect on economic growth … and there’s just no evidence of that,” said one agency analyst, adding that the decision to disavow the report “wasn’t about substance, it was about politics.”
At issue is a study released in September by the Congressional Research Service, which serves as Congress’s in-house nonpartisan policy research arm. “The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie,” the study found. “However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.”
Those conclusions put a congressionally-backed dent in the centerpiece of modern-day GOP economics: that lowering taxes for the wealthiest Americans will lead to broad-based prosperity. Republicans, including their standard-bearer Mitt Romney, have been united in opposing an end to the Bush tax cuts for high earners on these grounds.
The New York Times reported Thursday that after pressure from the office of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, CRS had withdrawn the report, though it remains available online.
Economists familiar with the interplay between CRS and Congress expressed shock. ”I can’t recall this type of political pressure brought to bare against a perfectly solid economic study,” Jared Bernstein, a former top economist to Vice President Biden and an MSNBC contributor, told MSNBC.com. “It is not melodramatic to assert that this strikes at the heart of democracy.”
A spokesman for McConnell told the Times that the GOP Senate leader and other Republican lawmakers “raised concerns about the methodology and other flaws.”
But an analyst at CRS who asked to remain anonymous dismissed that notion, telling MSNBC.com: “None of those issues they raised were of any import or made any difference.”
And Bernstein added that the report wasn’t out of step with the mainstream view on the issue. “[It's] findings are consistent with much of the literature on the relationship between tax cuts and growth.”
Indeed, after the top tax rate went up during the Clinton administration,the economy boomed, as the conservative economist Bruce Bartlett has shown in detail.
The decision to pull the report went against the view of the agency’s economists, and provoked outrage internally, according to the analyst, who added: “The message is, if you write something and someone gets mad about it, we throw you under the bus.”
“I know that the economists, and there probably are six or seven who read that report, were in all agreement that there was nothing wrong with the report,” the analyst continued. “The decision to remove the report was made by people who don’t know anything about the subject.”
Another CRS source said the decision had been the subject of “very contentious meetings,” and added: “People are understandably upset that a report that has gone through our normal review process can be pulled.”
The report’s author, Thomas Hungerford, isn’t disavowing it. “I wasn’t involved in the decision, as a matter of fact I was on vacation when the decision was made, so I can’t really add anything to what was reported in the NY Times,” he told Talking Points Memo in an email. “However, I certainly stand behind my work.”
Democrats aren’t taking this lightly. In a letter sent Thursday to CRS director Mary Mazanec, Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan wrote that he was “deeply disturbed” to hear about the report’s withdrawal “in response to political pressure from Congressional Republicans who had ideological objections to the report’s factual findings and conclusion,” and demanded an explanation.
Levin added: “It would be completely inappropriate for CRS to censor one of its analysts simply because participants in the political process found his or her conclusion in conflict with their partisan position.”
The CRS director is appointed by the head of the Library of Congress, of which the agency is a part. But because Congress holds the purse strings for both outfits, it’s no surprise that its leadership could be susceptible to pressure from lawmakers.
The GOP’s apparently successful effort to remove CRS’s seal of approval from the report is just the latest example of the party and its backers working to discredit objective and independent analyses that run counter to their interests. When the Labor Department reported higher-than-expected job growth for September, many on the right suggested the government was cooking the books, or argued that the numbers must be off. And when the Tax Policy Center released a study showing Romney’s tax plan would raise taxes on the middle-c
Friday, November 2, 2012
Romney Got Through The Campaign Without Disclosing
it
seemed only a matter of time before Romney would buckle to pressure and
release a critical mass of returns--if not the 12 years worth that his
father released when he ran for president, then at least, say, five or
six. But here we are, with just five days until the election, and Romney
has released no more than the two years he agreed to release back
during the primaries. This has left voters in near-total darkness about
basic questions about his very recent past. As tax experts have noted,
there are any number of reasons why Romney doesn't want to release more
of his taxes--it's possible he participated in an IRS amnesty program
for secret foreign bank accounts; it's more possible he gamed the system
to avoid taxes on his huge retirement account and his sons' $100
million trust fund, or that he paid very, very low rates these past
couple years as a result of a tax code that favors..
OEN
OEN
Thursday, November 1, 2012
The Economics of Dracula
A
A
Vlad the Impaler, and his literary
incarnation, Count Dracula, are rooted in a dark period of monetary
inflation and economic nationalism.
Most people are familiar with Count Dracula's first literary appearance in Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. And many are also aware that the undead villain was loosely based on a real historical figure, Vlad Tepes III — "Vlad the Impaler" (sometimes "Vlad Dracula") — who ruled mid-15th century Wallachia, a region of modern day Romania.
Incredibly, though, there is a real but lesser-known horror story behind Dracula — a story of the long-term effects of inflationary policies and a consequent campaign of economic nationalism, rather than of a mythic, powerful undead creature: interventionism pursued terrifyingly, diligently, to its logical ends.
The Real Dracula
In 1431, Vlad Tepes III, the man who would become the inspiration for Count Dracula, was born in Transylvania. With his father, Vlad II, on the Wallachian throne, early in life he and his brother were sent to the Ottoman court of Mehmet the Conqueror to act as living guarantors of their father's fidelity ("loyalty hostages"). While his brother, Radu, flourished, Vlad III was insolent and regularly experienced beatings and imprisonment.Typical for that time, a host of intrigues swirled about the court of Vlad II, compounded by Wallachia's critical location as a buffer kingdom between the Ottoman and Holy Roman Empires; changes in leadership could bring about changes in policy, swiftly impacting trade and fortunes. In December of 1447, Vlad II was murdered during a coup. The Ottomans responded swiftly, appointing young Vlad III to his father's former throne. A Hungarian force in turn responded, driving Vlad to flee to Moldavia where he undertook diplomatic duties alongside his uncle.
In 1453, Constantinople fell, and Ottoman forces surged through the Balkans. When the Hungarian occupiers left Wallachia to support their allies and help staunch the flow of invaders, Vlad III, now 23, leapt into action, organizing and leading a successful invasion of his native land.
Wreckage
On retaking the throne, Vlad was stunned to find Wallachia in a state of utter social and economic decay. Where once a brisk trade in "salt, cattle … honey, wine … wax" and many other goods had prospered, the economy was now utterly destroyed.[1]In fact, throughout the century prior to Vlad III's return, the Wallachian economy had been systematically destroyed by liberal use of a well-known policy strategy: currency manipulation. Previous rulers of Wallachia had repeatedly implemented monetary "reform,"
each [of which] led to the introduction of a more debased … lighter weight type of ducat … [in order to] increase of the amount of the coinage needed by … expanding political payments.[2]The previous Wallachian leaders' motives were timeworn as well: "Wallachia was confronted, almost permanently, with excessive military expenses … as well as an active international policy."
Thus, there were "serious threats … [to] the monetary stability in Wallachia during the entire 14th–15th century."[3]
Consistent expansion of the money supply had created insecurity within the realm, and Vlad immediately took action to create security, making his ruling objectives clear:
My sacred mission is to bring order.… There must be security for all in my land.… When a prince is powerful at home, he will be able to do as he wills. If I am feared by the right people, [we] will be strong.[4]Over the next six years, he implemented policies according to three rough tenets: class warfare/redistribution, protectionism, and welfare statism. Accounts of Vlad III's murderous efforts in these pursuits rival, in their sanguineous ingenuity, the most nightmarish accounts of both La Terreur of revolutionary France and the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. In Roumania Past and Present, historian James Samuelson notes, regarding the legends surrounding Vlad Tepes III, "if one-tenth of what has been related to him [is] true … [he is] one of the most atrocious and cruel tyrants who ever disgraced even those dark ages."[5]
However, Vlad III was more than just a sadist; his victims were chosen according to their usefulness with respect to fulfilling his vision for a revitalized Wallachia. Indeed, several historians agree that "it is beyond any doubt that [among other] reasons, Vlad the Impaler was … guided by economic ones."[6]
Class Warfare
A bulwark of the social and economic landscape of Wallachia — and most of Eastern Europe, at this time — was the boyar class: a social rank of landowners, merchants, and military elites one level below the ruling nobility. Vlad III blamed the merchants and elites for the economic troubles of the time. Consequently, a centerpiece of his plan to right the economic ship of Wallachia focused on persecuting the boyars and seizing their property: leveraging the masses' schadenfreud to harness the considerable power of envy and, in turn, greater breadth to the reach of his throne.The implicit message behind Vlad III's policy was an enduring one, as states go: that the wealthy and productive live off and at the expense of the multitude. In fact, governments are the true vampires, clandestinely siphoning the productive output of all citizens while pitting them against each other through propaganda and prevarication.
In Easter 1456, Vlad III invited a number of prominent boyars to his castle, some of whom he suspected of taking part in the conspiracy to murder his father. Suddenly, without warning, the
able-bodied were chained together and forced to march for sixty miles through the rugged countryside to the ruins of Poienari in the Argest valley. Many of them died enroute.… The prisoners were forced to form a human chain under the whip to convey building materials up the mountainside. The restoration work lasted for two months and very few of the captives survived the ordeal.[7]Throughout the remainder of his reign, Vlad III decimated the landowning and merchant population and at the same time seized their wealth and property. Throughout his reign, in fact, he devoted extensive time and effort to "systematically eradicate the old boyar class of Wallachia."[8] In August of 1459, one account reports that he "had thirty thousand merchants and boyars" killed.[9]
Vlad III had something in common with other murderous class avengers throughout history: he was from the very economic stratum that he persecuted. He began his life among the boyars, and like them was traveled, literate, and cultured. Indeed, even while persecuting them, he unwittingly revealed shared social mores. One of his aristocratic pet peeves was against boyar men who, in his opinion, didn't dress fancily enough; their wives were executed.
Protectionism
He also enacted several protectionist measures. One, which specifically targeted Transylvanian merchants coming to Wallachia, restricted them from trading outside designated market towns.[10] Another imposed high tariffs on goods sold by Saxon German craftsmen who exported raw commodities from Germany to Wallachia for completion, no doubt capitalizing on cheaper labor. This included creating a border patrol to inspect carts entering the region. In response, a small rebellion erupted, composed of the craftsmen who, between trips, gathered in small village settlements in northern Wallachia. It was crushed quickly as Vlad III's troops descended on them, "pillaging, looting, and burning them to the ground."[11] The survivors, most of whom fled to Germany, provided some of the earliest accounts of Vlad III's brutality.Welfare Statism
Vlad III also launched a hybrid welfare initiative, coupling a "war on poverty" with what might best be dubbed "DraculaCare":Vlad Dracula … once notice[d] that the poor, vagrants, beggars, and cripples had become very numerous in his land. Consequently, he issued an invitation to all the poor and sick in Wallachia to come to Tirgoviste for a great feast, claiming that no one should go hungry in his land. As the poor and crippled arrived in the city, they were ushered into a great hall where a fabulous feast was prepared for them. The guests ate and drank late into the night.[12]And, in an episode singularly epitomizing the immemorial tradeoff between freedom and security,
Vlad himself then made an appearance and asked them, "What else do you desire? Do you want to be without cares, lacking nothing in the world?" When they responded positively, Vlad ordered the hall boarded up and set on fire. None escaped the flames.[13]That horrific affair over, Vlad met with the hitherto most oppressed class in Wallachia. He "explained his action to the boyars by claiming that he did [it] 'in order that they represent no further burden to other men, and that no one will be poor in my realm.'"[14]
Blowback
As most of the boyars were killed off and survivors both heavily taxed and impressed into military service, they (most unsurprisingly) began shifting their loyalties toward the Ottoman Empire.[15] While leading troops in a series of brilliant guerilla campaigns against Ottoman forces in 1476, Vlad III was killed in battle. One wonders if his evil had finally come home to roost. There are several accounts of his death, all somewhat mysterious:Some reports indicate that he was assassinated by … Wallachian boyars just as he was about to sweep the Turks from the field. Other accounts have him falling … surrounded by the ranks of his loyal Moldavian bodyguard. Still other reports claim that Vlad, at the moment of victory, was accidentally struck down by one of his own men.[16]In the end, the fallout from Vlad III's economic "reforms," which largely consisted of killing of merchants and landowners en masse, as well as erecting barriers to trade, was far-reaching:
[Soon] Wallachia lost a harbor which had been a gateway for its trade with the Eastern world. This is the backdrop against which the main trade directions begin to be gradually retraced, so the economic circuit in Southern and Eastern Europe, from the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, stops being the centre piece. The bulk of international Trade [was] shifted slowly towards the west of the Continent and the Atlantic.[17]The central plain of Wallachia was "heavily depopulated" toward the end of the 14th century owing to "frequent military operations" that continued after Vlad III's demise. In addition, his tyranny fed even more of the political intrigue that plagued his father's reign, leading to a succession of "short and unworthy reigns."[18]
Legacy
In the decades after his death, Vlad III's memory has, in some circles, been whitewashed. One may soberly wonder how it is that a man responsible for the brutal deaths of up to 100,000 of his own people might be remembered positively, let alone warmly, but to do so would be to ignore the debauchery of power and politics.Under the czars in pre-revolution Russia, "[Vlad] Dracula was presented as a cruel but just prince whose actions were directed toward the greater good of his people."[19] The czars were executed by communists, whose actions were quite explicitly undertaken in the name of the "greater good of the people," and were no less appreciative of bloody tactics. On the 500th anniversary of Vlad III's death, "the man who so terrorized Wallachia's aristocracy [and] was a champion of the craftsmen and the laboring classes" was secularly canonized by the leftist regime in Romania.[20]
One incredible example of this admiration was the manner in which the … anniversary of Dracula's death was celebrated in 1976. Throughout Romania eulogies and panegyrics were ordered by Communist Party members; monographs, novels, works of art, a film — even a commemorative stamp was issued — to praise the Impaler.[21]Worse yet, imitation remained the sincerest form of flattery:
It is no wonder that Romania's Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, would emulate Vlad Tepes, for he was able to frighten his own people.… [His] policies constituted a modern and very real version of nationalism that included isolationist economic arrangements and attempts to suppress the ethnic rights of Hungarians and German Saxons in Transylvania, as well as the Swabians in the Banat. The destruction of the predominantly Hungarian-populated Transylvanian villages … was one of the triggers of [the] 1989 uprising.[22]Vlad the Impaler — and by extension his literary incarnation, Count Dracula — are products of monetary inflation and economic nationalism. But there is a solidly silver (and gold) lining to the black cape of Vlad Tepes III's legacy, and it has taken root over the last century, facilitated by the greatest liberating force in the history of the world: capitalism. The Dracula character, and vampirism as a broader fantasy/horror genre, have vastly outgrown their humble origins in Stoker's novel. Over 200 different film adaptations have been made; countless fiction and interpretive books published (in the former category, the hugely successful Twilight series comes immediately to mind). A 2005 book about Vlad III, in fact, fostered an assemblage of superlatives:
The Historian was the first debut novel to land at number one on The New York Times bestseller list in its first week on sale, and as of 2005 was the fastest-selling hardback debut novel in U.S. history. The book sold more copies on its first day in print than The Da Vinci Code — 70,000 copies were sold in the first week alone. As of the middle of August 2005, the novel had already sold 915,000 copies in the U.S. and had gone through six printings. (For comparison, according to Publishers Weekly, only ten fiction books sold more than 800,000 hardcover copies in the US in 2004.)[23]On cable television, True Blood dominates ratings, and Sesame Street's "Count" character has taught tens of millions of children around the world how to read numerals.
Though it hardly passes for justice, being mass-marketed, minimized, and revamped (pun intended) renders a wonderfully sardonic twist to the final memory of a genocidal central planner — better and more ironic still, a memory this productive: many millions are employed by and consume from businesses centered on or involving vampire themes. They include actors, writers, musicians, video-game programmers, retailers and merchandisers, service people in the restaurant and tourism industry, and more. A major component of the Dracula "franchise" will begin shortly after school gets out today; over the past few weeks, an estimated $5 billion dollars has been spent on Halloween candy, decorations, costumes (not least of which plastic fangs, fake blood, rubber bats), and the like.
It is this author's hope that this not an isolated phenomenon — more specifically, that even if it takes a few hundred years, one day Count Chocula might find heated competition at breakfast tables by the productive, market-borne resurrection of another homicidal guerilla fighter — possibly in the form of "Guevara O's."
Happy Halloween!
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