September 9, 2012

Your comment about "blueberry pie" reminded me of teabagger joke:

A CEO, a tea partier, a union worker and an immigrant are all sitting at a table when a plate with a dozen cookies arrives. Before anyone else can make a move, the CEO reaches out to rake in eleven of the cookies.

When the other three look at him in surprise, the CEO locks eyes with the tea party member. "You better watch them," the executive says with a nod toward the union worker and the immigrant. "They want a piece of your cookie."

September 9, 2012

While I think federal spending should be significantly increased, that is an effective

chart to use on republicans who accuse the president of being a "typical big spending Democrat". Thanks for posting it, Bernardo de La Paz.

September 5, 2012

Fine we'll play the Zalatix game of accepting the polls we agree with and rejecting those we don't.

"Obama has slapped tariffs on China, and kicked their asses in WTO disputes to boot - what do you have to say to that?"

I fully support Obama. That is the advantage of having any country belong to the WTO. It gives you a forum to prove your case and get punitive tariffs or other penalties imposed as a result. That is something the Bush never did and Obama has done effectively.

Of course, the US has lost many cases in the WTO and have more punitive tariffs charged against us than any other country has, so we are not totally innocent when it comes to this. (I suspect that our history of being penalized by the WTO is one of the reasons that republican base wants us to withdraw from the WTO.)

"We have tried things your way now and it has led to total economic failure. At what point do you recognize this?"

You never seem to recognize that we have tried high tariffs before many times and always under republican-run governments. You just keep proposing that they will solve our problems when they never did in the past. At what point do you recognize that?

"We have low tariffs and we have a MONSTROUS non-oil trade deficit. At what point do you recognize this?"

And our trade deficit with 'free trade' countries is practically nonexistent. At what point do you recognize that?

"No amount of strong support for unions can beat offshoring. In fact, offshoring is what KILLED the unions."

Germany, Sweden and many other progressive countries have very strong unions and trade more than the US does. At what point do you recognize that? (And no I have not seen Germany's exploding trade deficit, have you?)

I understand that you seem to want to blame all of our problems on trade even though it is a much smaller part of our economy than it is of any other country this side of North Korea.

I am sure your belief in this will not change, but that does not mean that I will accept that high tariffs are anything but a failed republican policy from the past. They have never worked and Democrats have always had to clean up the messes that republicans made with them.

And high tariffs are today promoted by the extreme right (and opposed by the left) in countries all over the world.

September 2, 2012

... the five great drivers of European unification since the 1950s have now either disappeared or

lost much of their energy.

What happened to the forces that drove the project of European unification forward over the last 60 years?
----First and foremost was the personal memory of war, and the mantra of “never again,” which motivated three generations of Europeans after 1945. But the last generation to have experienced World War II is passing on, and the collective memory is weak.
----Second, the Soviet threat provided a powerful incentive for Western Europeans to unite during the cold war.
----Third, until the 1990s, the engine of European integration was the Federal Republic of Germany, with France at the steering wheel.
----Fourth, the once captive nations of Eastern Europe are no longer uniformly passionate about the European Union even though their citizens have more recent memories of dictatorship, hardship and war.
----Finally, the widespread assumption that “Europe” would mean a rising standard of living and social security for all Europeans has been badly dented by accumulated debt, aging populations, global competition and the crisis of the euro zone.

And that is the beginning of the new case for European unification. While we Europeans should redouble our efforts to ensure that our continent does not forget its troubled past, the need for scale is the key to our shared future. The 21st-century world will be one of giants: weary old ones, like the United States and Russia, and hungry new ones, like China, India, Brazil and South Africa.

If Europeans are to preserve the remarkable combination of prosperity, peace, relative social security and quality of life that they have achieved over the last 60 years, they need the scale that only the European Union can provide. In a world of giants, you had better be a giant yourself: A trade negotiation between China and the European Union is a conversation between equals; one between China and France is an unequal affair.

Europeans should not entirely abandon the hope — faint though it looks today — that their pioneering version of peaceful integration between previously warring states could point the way for better “global governance” in response to shared threats like climate change and to the tensions that inevitably arise between rising and declining powers. For without enhanced cooperation on a global scale, the 21st-century world may come to look like the late-19th-century Europe of rivalrous great powers.

It was probably inevitable that, as the last survivors of Europe's last great war die off, the impetus behind the "pioneering version of peaceful integration between previously warring states" would lose its momentum as well.

Whether Europe's example of such 'peaceful integration' of previously uncooperative (to say the least) countries will be a useful lesson in how to respond to "shared threats like climate change and to the tensions that inevitably arise between rising and declining powers" remains to be seen. But one can hope the belief that walls or vast oceans can protect you from what is happening elsewhere has been relegated to the dust bin of history.

September 1, 2012

Krugman: Rob Portman lying about China financing our deficit

Ah. Let’s give thanks to Rob Portman, who offered a nice break from all the lies in Tampa, and instead offered us some good old-fashioned bad macroeconomics. Obama won’t take on China, Portman said, because

Obama could not run up his record trillion dollar deficits if the Chinese did not buy our bonds to finance them

How is it possible that we’re borrowing much less from foreigners when the government deficit has gone up so much? The answer is that the private sector is deleveraging, having moved into massive surplus as consumers try to pay down debt and corporations hold back on investment in the face of weak consumer demand. All those government deficits have only partly offset this move, so that overall national borrowing from overseas is down, not up.

So who’s actually financing the US budget deficit? The US private sector. We don’t need Chinese bond purchases, and if anything we’re the ones with the power, since we don’t need their money and they have a lot to lose. In fact, we don’t want them to buy our bonds; better to have a weaker dollar (a point that the Japanese actually get.)

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/30/fear-of-china-syndrome/

Thanks to Mr. Krugman for calling out another republican liar playing the be-very-afraid-of-China (one of the right's favorite 'thems') card.

August 30, 2012

Great graphic on the causes of the deficit - #1 Bush tax cuts; #2 - Bush recession;

#3 - Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

August 29, 2012

Our trade numbers are much better with 'free-trade' countries than with the rest of the world.

In 2010 our total trade with the the 17 countries with which we had 'free-trade' agreements (not including Panama, Columbia and South Korea which joined last year) was $1.115 trillion. We had a trade deficit of $71.1 billion (6.5% of the total) with them. Exports were 47% and imports were 53% of the total.

In 2010 our total trade with the rest of the world was $2.108 trillion. We had a deficit of $574.8 billion (27.2% of the total). Exports were 36.5% and imports were 63.5%.

In 2010 the amount of our trade with non-'free trade' countries ($2.1 trillion) was about twice as large as with 'free trade' countries ($1.1 trillion), but our trade deficit ($575 billion vs. $71 billion) was 8 times larger with non-'free trade' countries.

The figures for 2011 are about the same but I don't have them with me.

Our trade deficit with non-"free trade" countries is much larger both in absolute and percentage terms. It makes no sense to want to preserve the status quo with those countries.

August 9, 2012

Great site, HiPointDem. Love the sliders which pick the time period. Makes repubs look very bad.

1921-1928 - Republican era with high tariffs (1921 & 1922) and restrictive immigration laws (1921 & 1924):

The average incomes in the us grew by $4,764;
Richest 10% got 64% of that growth;
The bottom 90% shared 36%.

1933-1952 - Democratic era (FDR and Truman):

Average incomes in the US grew by $15,246;
Richest 10% got 24% of that growth;
The bottom 90% shared 76%.

1961-1969 - Democratic era (JFK and LBJ)

Average incomes in the US grew by $9,949;
Richest 10% got 33% of that growth;
The bottom 90% shared 67%.

1981-1992 - Republican era (Reagan and Bush I)

Average incomes in the US grew by $3,017;
All the growth went to the richest 10%;
Income for the bottom 90% declined.

1993 - 2000 - Democratic era (Clinton)

Average incomes in the US grew by $14,082;
Richest 10% got 70% of that growth;
The bottom 90% shared 30%.

2001 - 2008 - Republican era (Bush II)

Average incomes in the US fell by $432;
The average income of the richest 10% grew;
For the bottom 90% the average income fell.

That is a wonderful and very useful graph. It certainly shows the consequences of republican policies vs Democratic ones.

July 9, 2012

"bought and paid for by the globalization lobby" - sounds like FDR.

FDR reversed the high republican tariffs of 1921, 1922 and 1930. He believed in low tariffs and in the benefits of international trade.

He could be considered the author of the globalization movement. He pushed for the creation of the United Nations, the IMF and World Bank and GATT (which became the WTO) to create multilateral governance of trade so that it would be more difficult for individual countries to raise tariffs and start the trade wars like those that resulted from those high republican tariffs.

That is about as 'globalist' an agenda as one can imagine. (I'm not sure if he was "bought and paid for by the globalization lobby" or whether he created the "globalization lobby".)

July 4, 2012

Interesting stuff in that platform about minimum wage, Dodd-Frank, the Fed, the UN, etc.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/2012Platform_Final.pdf

"Minimum Wage – We believe the Minimum Wage Law should be repealed.

Federal Reserve System – We believe Congress should repeal the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. In the interim, we call for a complete audit of the Federal Reserve System and an immediate report to the American people.

Sound Money – Our founding fathers warned us of the dangers of allowing central bankers to control our currency because inflation equals taxation without representation. We support the return to the time tested precious metal standard for the U.S. dollar.

Sarbanes Oxley – We support the repeal of Sarbanes Oxley legislation.

Dodd Frank – We support the immediate repeal of Dodd Frank legislation.

Community Reinvestment Act – We support the repeal of the Community Reinvestment Act.

Protection from Extreme Environmentalists – We strongly oppose all efforts of the extreme environmental groups that stymie legitimate business interests. We strongly oppose those efforts that attempt to use the environmental causes to purposefully disrupt and stop those interests within the oil and gas industry. We strongly support the immediate repeal of the Endangered Species Act.

National Sovereignty – We insist that the President and Congress defend our national sovereignty in accordance with their oaths of office. Therefore we believe the United States government must remain free of external control or influence, including, but not limited to, a North American Union and a security and prosperity partnership.

United Nations – We support the withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations and the removal of U.N. headquarters from U.S. soil.

Law of the Sea – Adopted by the UN in 1982, we still oppose the Law of the Sea Treaty.

UN Treaty on the Rights of the Child ― We unequivocally oppose the United States Senate’s ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

United Nations Agenda 21 -The Republican Party of Texas should expose all United Nations Agenda 21 treaty policies and its supporting organizations, agreements and contracts. We oppose implementation of the UN Agenda 21 Program which was adopted at the Earth Summit Conference in 1992 purporting to promote a comprehensive program of sustainable development projects, nationally, regionally and locally.

Cap and Trade – We oppose Cap and Trade (“Cap and Tax”).

International Organizations – We support U.S. withdrawal from the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and the World Bank.