Placing tariffs on imported steel and aluminum is just as dumb as all the other Republican ideas, economic and everything else. You'd think they would stumble on a good idea once in awhile by accident, but it never happens.
The way the world grows wealthier through global trade is that poorer countries mine their natural resources like coal, iron ore, and bauxite, or purchase them from other poor countries, and use their unskilled labor to produce steel and aluminum to sell to richer countries which use their skilled labor and industrial technology to turn the aluminum and steel into value-added products like cars and appliances which they sell to their fellow countrymen and export to the citizens of poor countries which have money to buy the products made in rich countries because they have jobs mining minerals and making steel and aluminum.
So, eventually poor countries become rich and their work force becomes educated and their technology advances, and they begin to make cars and appliances, but because their younger work force will work for cheaper wages, their cars and appliances are cheaper, so the richer countries move on to making even more value-added products like airplanes, spacecraft, robots, electromagnetic trains, and products not yet invented.
This is the way global capitalism works until one of the wealthy countries screws things up the way America is doing now under the leadership of Republicans.
Instead of improving our infrastructure, supporting research that will create technological advances, and investing in workforce training and education, Republicans are siphoning off trillions of national income to make the wealthy wealthier. And to further exacerbate the damage, they have decided to support, by placing tariffs on imports, dangerous, polluting, low- tech, low-wage jobs in mineral extraction and aluminum and steel making - jobs that the American economy moved on from decades ago.
It makes no sense until you look at it through the lens of Republican economic policy, which places no value on America moving forward into new realms of high tech, high-wage jobs in new, exciting, clean industries of the future. Instead, old, dirty, dangerous jobs of the past will do just fine, as long as the natural order is preserved and the rich get richer as the poor get poorer.
There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.
Monday, April 23, 2018
Friday, March 23, 2018
Republican Tax "Reform" 2018
I put Reform in quotation marks in the title, because that word has a different meaning to Republicans than to the rest of us. To them, tax reform consists of cutting taxes for corporations and wealthy individuals. Oh, they will throw in a few minor cuts to the middle class as a bribe, but they evidently think middle class voters can be bought cheaply, since the sources I read reported that approximately 85% of the benefits of the"reform" go to the wealthy, none goes to the poor, and the paltry amount that goes to the middle class disappears in ten years.
Now, I'm not completely sure these numbers are accurate, but I accept they are, since they conform with my observations of Republican fiscal policy over the years. In fact, transferring as much wealth as possible from 99% of Americans to the top 1%, pretty much sums up Republican public policy in total. Everything else is ancillary to that.
No one should be curious as to why the incoming Bush Jr. administration took no action on the warnings of a major terrorist attack that had been relayed to them by the outgoing Clinton administration. They were concentrating on their policy priority: tax cuts for the wealthy. If you remember, prior to the 2000 election, Bush was trying to buy the election by saying that since the economy was doing so well, the country could afford a tax cut for everyone. Of course, what he really meant was a big tax cut for the wealthy and a much smaller one for the middle class, but, hey, those are just details. We're supposed to hear "tax cut" and leave it at that. But then, when the economy slowed down soon after taking office, the Bush Jr. administration had to switch gears and justify a tax cut for the wealthy which was needed in order to rejuvenate the economy. Changing gears so quickly regarding such an important issue left no time for such non-revenue-producing matters as national security.
In order to sell tax cuts to those who benefit from them little or not at all, which is 99%of the population, Republicans, over the years, have created myths which they promulgate widely and often. Each of these myths has been shown to be demonstrably false, but Republicans never let an inconsequential thing like the truth stand in the way of getting richer.
Myth 1: Tax Cuts for the Rich Pay for Themselves. It's a lie. Always has been a lie, always will be a lie. But claiming that cutting taxes for the rich actually generates more overall tax revenue is so appealing to Republicans that they can't resist it, so they keep repeating it over and over, evidently with the belief that if they really and truly believe it, someday it will magically come true.
Myth 2: Tax Cuts for the Rich Jumpstart the Economy. The opposite is actually true. Tax cuts for the poor and middle class ignite the economy, because most of it is spent on things they need, and a little on things they want. The rich already have everything they need and most of what they want, so tax cuts for them just make them richer.
Myth 3: Tax Cuts for the Rich Create Jobs. When Republicans are forced to admit the obvious, that their tax cuts are for the benefit of the rich, they respond by claiming that everyone else benefits because the rich are "job creators". This makes no more sense than any of the other conservative economic principles. Corporations and rich individuals don't create jobs when they are handed more money; jobs are created by demand. When poor and middle class families have money, they buy goods and services. In response, existing businesses expand and new businesses are created.
The reality is that the American economy needed no tax cut stimulus after Trump took office. It was already humming along nicely, thanks to Democratic efforts after the Republicans almost managed to wreck the entire world economy in 2008. Now would have been the time to run a surplus and start to pay down our national debt. But the only reality Republicans recognize is the need for the rich to get richer, even if that means everyone else must get poorer.
There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.
Now, I'm not completely sure these numbers are accurate, but I accept they are, since they conform with my observations of Republican fiscal policy over the years. In fact, transferring as much wealth as possible from 99% of Americans to the top 1%, pretty much sums up Republican public policy in total. Everything else is ancillary to that.
No one should be curious as to why the incoming Bush Jr. administration took no action on the warnings of a major terrorist attack that had been relayed to them by the outgoing Clinton administration. They were concentrating on their policy priority: tax cuts for the wealthy. If you remember, prior to the 2000 election, Bush was trying to buy the election by saying that since the economy was doing so well, the country could afford a tax cut for everyone. Of course, what he really meant was a big tax cut for the wealthy and a much smaller one for the middle class, but, hey, those are just details. We're supposed to hear "tax cut" and leave it at that. But then, when the economy slowed down soon after taking office, the Bush Jr. administration had to switch gears and justify a tax cut for the wealthy which was needed in order to rejuvenate the economy. Changing gears so quickly regarding such an important issue left no time for such non-revenue-producing matters as national security.
In order to sell tax cuts to those who benefit from them little or not at all, which is 99%of the population, Republicans, over the years, have created myths which they promulgate widely and often. Each of these myths has been shown to be demonstrably false, but Republicans never let an inconsequential thing like the truth stand in the way of getting richer.
Myth 1: Tax Cuts for the Rich Pay for Themselves. It's a lie. Always has been a lie, always will be a lie. But claiming that cutting taxes for the rich actually generates more overall tax revenue is so appealing to Republicans that they can't resist it, so they keep repeating it over and over, evidently with the belief that if they really and truly believe it, someday it will magically come true.
Myth 2: Tax Cuts for the Rich Jumpstart the Economy. The opposite is actually true. Tax cuts for the poor and middle class ignite the economy, because most of it is spent on things they need, and a little on things they want. The rich already have everything they need and most of what they want, so tax cuts for them just make them richer.
Myth 3: Tax Cuts for the Rich Create Jobs. When Republicans are forced to admit the obvious, that their tax cuts are for the benefit of the rich, they respond by claiming that everyone else benefits because the rich are "job creators". This makes no more sense than any of the other conservative economic principles. Corporations and rich individuals don't create jobs when they are handed more money; jobs are created by demand. When poor and middle class families have money, they buy goods and services. In response, existing businesses expand and new businesses are created.
The reality is that the American economy needed no tax cut stimulus after Trump took office. It was already humming along nicely, thanks to Democratic efforts after the Republicans almost managed to wreck the entire world economy in 2008. Now would have been the time to run a surplus and start to pay down our national debt. But the only reality Republicans recognize is the need for the rich to get richer, even if that means everyone else must get poorer.
There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
The Obama Portraits
Here is one way to look at the portraits of Barack and Michelle: If you are only familiar with classical music, then jazz is going to sound mighty strange. But if you listen to classical and jazz treatments of the same song, you begin to discern the similarities and the differences, and can appreciate that both are valid interpretations of the same reality.
Let's say that the portrait paintings that most of us have seen in museums, in galleries, in historic homes, in courthouses and state capitols, are classical in nature; that is, to the greatest extent that the artist is capable, they are realistic interpretations of the likeness of the subject of the painting, and their quality is judged on how readily the subject can be identified.
A jazz interpretation, however, while similar in essence, might be very different in execution. When people say "It doesn't look like Michelle," they are referring to the lack of classical familiarity. What about a jazz interpretation, though, as when a jazz musician riffs on a familiar musical theme? Does this portrait communicate something about its subject on a different level than physical likeness? Can you see a truer likeness of Michelle in this painting than in a portrait that looks like a photograph, in the same way that Van Gogh's self-portrait looked very little like him, and at the same time, very much like him? Does the painting make you say, "Now that is Michelle," even more than a photograph of Michelle would?
There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.
Let's say that the portrait paintings that most of us have seen in museums, in galleries, in historic homes, in courthouses and state capitols, are classical in nature; that is, to the greatest extent that the artist is capable, they are realistic interpretations of the likeness of the subject of the painting, and their quality is judged on how readily the subject can be identified.
A jazz interpretation, however, while similar in essence, might be very different in execution. When people say "It doesn't look like Michelle," they are referring to the lack of classical familiarity. What about a jazz interpretation, though, as when a jazz musician riffs on a familiar musical theme? Does this portrait communicate something about its subject on a different level than physical likeness? Can you see a truer likeness of Michelle in this painting than in a portrait that looks like a photograph, in the same way that Van Gogh's self-portrait looked very little like him, and at the same time, very much like him? Does the painting make you say, "Now that is Michelle," even more than a photograph of Michelle would?
There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.
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