April 29, 2018

EMBRACE Progessive (very socially liberal and medium socialist) economics and social policies.

Refund public education and pay public school teachers high salaries such as professionals entrusted with the future of our children and grandchildren deserve.

Climate Change: re-join the World. Foster sustainability and the jobs of the future. (hint: China and Europe are busting a gut developing green technology.)

Health Care: Single Payer, Choose Your Own Doctor, Allow doctors to charge above Single Payer fee, but all people in any area should have the lowest fee for that are met (nobody but nobody should lack for preventive, remedial, or palliative health care).

Reinstate and extend equal rights for LGBTQAU throughout society.

Gun Control: Extend background checks to ALL sales, even private sales. No sales of assault-rifle mass-killer type weapons (existing ones can be kept and maybe even resold until a way can be found to take them out of circulations without "grabbing" them, perhaps buyback from agency whenever an owner dies or wishes to get rid of one).

Increased intake of refugees commensurate with international responsibilities: 44 so far this year is ridiculous.

Livable minimum wage: Raise to $15 one dollar a year if not faster.

Cooperative non-belligerent foreign policy: no more MAGA: Make America Go Alone.

Secure the election systems from top to bottom, which may require some level of enforced federal control or at least standards. Get rid of Gerrymandering, Voter Suppression, and dirty tricks.

Fact & Science & Evidence based policy making and legislative standards. Reinstate scientific freedom to speak out. Reinstate multiple scientific studies. Refund NOAA and other agencies.

Look into Basic Income and Basic Housing free for all who need. It works wonders and cost less in every jurisdiction that has tried it.

So much more.

April 14, 2018

Yes, prepare yourself, there will lots of sturm &drang & some violence, but we will emerge stronger

There is a big boil on the American body politic and Mueller along with journalists is working hard to lance it. The first aid, remediation and long term healing will be difficult but ultimately confidence in the system will be restored. I think that will happen by the 2030s and in time for the US to provide a stable counterbalance to China or with China.

I expect Mueller will make a report presenting Obstruction of Justice against tRump in the next few months. I'm sure he will release a second report, perhaps a few months later, detailing the Conspiracy against the USA (commonly called "collusion" ). I think both reports have already been written more or less and are being constantly updated and refined as more details accumulate and are discovered. I think Mueller probably has a "dead-hand" switch in place so that if he is fired then both reports will be released and all the sealed indictments will be unsealed.

As Davidson says, the information will come out. The corruption is so large it can't be hidden. It won't be pretty.

It could lead to the collapse of the Republicon Party. Certainly Democrats have an opportunity and duty to keep the Trump and Republican/GOP brands glued and welded together as they actually are. Ryan is leaving now for good reason. He would be smart to hand over the Speaker's gavel now and go silent and fade away, unless or until he is hauled into court, which he may be.

McCONnell is probably guilty as sin of heavy duty crimes because he knew the fix was in when he blocked Merrick Garland from the SCotUS, AND when he refused to warn the states' electoral commissions by telling Obama he would lie if Obama did so himself.

Participants like Sessions, Priebus, Cohen, Manafort, and probably Pence will be completely and utterly disgraced and should get jail time if there is justice, though they will always have believers who to proclaim they are pure as the driven snow.

People like Pruitt, Mnuchin, and Carson are trying to make their ride as cushy as they can for as long as they can. They won't be implicated so much but won't have much of a career afterwards. Ideologues like deVos and Perry will end up being judged stupid.

Mueller will probably increasingly hand off to District offices side crimes that are discovered, particularly business crimes like Michael Cohen's taxi business and Trump's business mess. There will be economic repercussions when tRump's empire crumbles, but the direct effects are likely to be small. Of larger consequence is the stock market which I think has begun a major correction that has a substantial way to go down yet. Trump's family will never be poor but will not be in the 0.01% they think they are entitled to be in.

The most committed ignorant Trump supporters will resort to some violence which may ripple out for a few years after. Part of this may be as a consequence of anger against damage to the NRA gun runners and part will be racism and bigotry that they will be unable to suppress any longer.

Prepare yourselves. Winning the Blue Wave of 2018 is top priority for the foreseeable near and medium term. Higher priorities could take center stage for periods on the road to Nov. 2018.

Maintain a calm poised stance and work to advance Democratic power and American democracy whenever possible.

March 22, 2018

Trump better watch out. He'll end up like Senator Brazeau who got PULPED

Six years ago, March 2012, Justin Trudeau handily defeated Senator Brazeau in a boxing match.




https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/nz9wpd/the-definitive-analysis-of-the-handshake-between-donald-trump-and-justin-trudeau

March 16, 2018

Wrong wrong wrong.

The most charitable view of your statement is that it suffers from binary thinking tunnel vision.

It is a narrow-minded fallacy to think that capitalism can only be parasitical. Robber baron capitalism is parasitical. The tremendous wealth & income inequality we have in the US and some other countries now (getting worse) is parasitical and unsustainable. The US system is not the only system of capitalism in the world.

Capitalism is very efficient at creating jobs and employing people and advancing many aspects of society. Capitalism is very efficient at distributing goods and resources to where they are needed. Command economies fail. Communism fails since "from each according to ability and to each according to need" fails to provide adequate incentives for advancement.

DU is capitalist (private and owned) and employs several people. It is good.

The problem with capitalism-on-steroids is that it over-rewards the top 1% and 0.01%, people who don't need extra incentive, at the expense of the bottom 47% who are people who need support and incentives. Therefore capitalism must be well-regulated, well-monitored, subject to progressive social goals, and operating under progressive tax regimes. Byzantine tax systems need to be truly simplified by turning amorphous invisible tax breaks into publicly visible subsidies.

On the side of socialism, more and more studies are showing that if you provide people with guaranteed housing, guaranteed basic income, and guaranteed health care, then the outcome actually saves money and makes the society much more productive and harmonious. People with an address (not homeless) are much more likely to find work. People use less emergency services. There is a reduction in the cost of policy and a reduction in crime (poor/homeless people are also likely to be victims of crime). People have better health and that means there is less drag on the economy for health care and they are more productive and more able to help each other (the elderly and disabled for example). Note: guaranteed basic income subsumes social security and welfare.

Pure systems of any kind are bad, be it capitalism (robber baron capitalism), socialism (communism when purest), fascism (corporate-statist-bureaucratic elitism), dictatorship (of despots or proletariat or peasants or monarchs or whatever) or anarchism (dog eat dog).

A hybrid of capitalism and socialism is the only way to go. At least until humanity is so highly developed that something approaching nearly pure enlightened self-interest is feasible (community and socially and globally connected).

When all is said, Stephen Hawking's point about the distribution of benefits is very much correct.

March 3, 2018

Wilbur Ross used deceitful deceptive argument to defend Trump Tariff

CommSec Ross said there are 2/10 cent steel in a soup can and 3/10 cent aluminum in a coke can.

The cost of the can won't change much, but the PRICE on the shelf will go up noticeably.

The machinery that makes the cans and fills them will cost more. The machinery that prints the labels will cost more.

The farm machinery that plants and harvests the food materials will cost more.

The trucks that move the cans will cost more because of steel costs.

The tools that fix all that machinery will cost more.

The steel shelves will cost more.

The steel in the construction of the packing houses, the food factories, the distribution warehouses, and the supermarkets will cost more.

By time you dial in all the costs going into the products and getting them through the manufacturing and supply chains, the PRICE will add up because it is multiplicative, not merely additive. When the food is more expensive to produce, the food cost goes up which raises the cost from the food factory to the distributor by a percentage because it costs and prices and profits are calculated on dollar volumes, not unit counts. The cost to the retailer goes up when the distributor raises prices.

Until proven otherwise, we have to take the position that Ross knows this and was deceiving the public and using the taxpayers' dimes to do so while being paid salary.

February 9, 2018

RepubliCONs are Borrow-and-Spend. Defense money is dead money. Rich park tax cuts in real estate/art

The old canard that Republicons use against Democrats is that they are "tax-and-spend". Republicons are of course borrow-and-spend, which is hypocritical.

You also have to factor in business cycles. Democrats tend to grow the economy and fix up deficits with a mix of fiscal prudence and some raised taxes. If they inherit a big economic problem like Obama did, they will stimulate the economy.

This is basic economics: Stimulate with government spending and some broad tax cuts during hard times, and pay down the debt during good times with raised taxes and fiscal prudence.

But there's another aspect to what the RepubliCONs did that make their willful mistake worse: Bombs and tanks do not produce more money (production). Machine tools and computers do. Building a jet fighter puts money in motion for a very limited time. Once the fighter is produced, it consumes money and doesn't make anything. Yes, defense is needed for national security, within limits.

However, it gets worse. By giving tax cuts to the rich, they do not invest in production. They are already fully invested; they need more investment opportunities. They park the money in real estate and art which inflates the prices of those two elements.

Tax cuts to the middle class and especially to the poor put money in motion. The money is quickly spend on food and housing and transportation and education. All of those are productive. Healthy people work longer hours. People with good housing are able to provide their children with better parenting and upbringing. People with cars or money to spend on public transit hold more jobs more securely and that makes the economy grow.