Friday, January 25, 2019

Massive income inequality leads to massive political disruption

America's massive income inequality, a fairly recent development, can become very dangerous - to the wealthy.  What has happened in the past when the income inequality got too big?

1790s - The French Revolution. The impoverished revolted and cut of the heads (guillotine) off the aristocracy.  Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, was supposed to have said "Let them eat cake (brioche)" in response to hearing that the impoverished could not afford bread.  They revolted crying out for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. And chopped off their heads.

In an odd parallel, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, billionaire Wilbur Ross, said that those who were unemployed or unpaid during the current shutdown of the government by President Trump should just go get a temporary loan until the government reopened.  He was unaware that some people do not qualify for a loan (other than perhaps usurious despicable Payday Loans); nor did he understand that loans take longer than many workers can wait for in order to eat either bread or brioche.

1917 - The Russian Revolution.  A bit more than 100 years later, the Russian impoverished rose up and killed the Russian Tsar Nicholas and his family and established the disastrous Communist Revolution. 

2019 - Now, after another 100 years, the inequality in America has reached shocking levels.  Today, the top 1% own as much as the bottom 95%! 

How does that compare to the past? 
  • 1960 - top 1% had about 28%, bottom 95% had about 42%.
  • 1970 - top 1% had about 27%, bottom 95% had about 45%
  • 1980 - top 1% had about 23%, bottom 95% had about 49%
Then Reagan happened with Supply Side Economics and deregulation
  • 1990 - top 1% had about 27%, bottom 95% had about 49%
  • 2000 - top 1% had about 33%, bottom 95% had about 43%
  • 2010 - top 1% had about 39%, bottom 95% had about 37%
  • 2016 - top 1% had about 39%, bottom 95% had about 38%
So Obama flattened the curve some, but the damage was done.  See chart below.



So, what is happening now? 



In 2016, amazingly, a billionaire Real Estate mogul and television star convinced those suffering from the job dislocations due to technology and globalism that he could get their jobs back by building a wall to keep brown people out, and he would deregulate finances and industry and that would create jobs for them.  And they bought it!  Those suffering from the inequality in the country turned to a 1%-er to save them.  They are going to notice that it didn't work.


What else is happening now?  Democrats are looking at major reshaping of the economic landscape.  Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren wants to place a wealth tax on the top 0.1% of the richest in America.


And young freshman House member, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is proposing a top marginal tax rate of 70% on the ten millionth dollar earned.


Seems to me that taxes are better than guillotines or Communist Revolutions.


Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Hilarious solution for fat president with small hands problem

What occupies our current president's mind?  Government shutdown which is slowing the economy and hurting the lackluster stock market?  Russian interference in democracies in America and the world?  Anything other than his poll numbers amongst this fervid base?  Well, there is something - his fat body and small hands, or rather, photos of himself revealing his fat body and small hands.  From columnist Dana Milbank:


"The longest government shutdown in U.S. history shows no sign of resolving, and Americans wonder what President Trump and his team are doing.
Now we know. They are doing the important work the people sent them to do. They are elongating Trump’s fingers.

The tech website Gizmodo reported this week that it found at least three retouched photographs on Trump’s social media pages since October, including two in the past few days, in which his body and face have been slimmed, his face and neck wrinkles tightened, his hair cleaned up — “and in one of the strangest alterations, Trump’s fingers have been made slightly longer.”

Comparing the original photographs to the doctored ones, Gizmodo speculates that Trump aides have been using Photoshop or Facetune and finds it “especially weird that his fingers have been made longer, which might lead one to believe that the president has had some input in these alterations.”"

I feel sorry for my conservative friends who feel that they need to defend this silly person.  How did they ever decide that this is the person they wanted to represent them?

Monday, January 21, 2019

The basic rule in dealing with hostage ransom tweets

I think the basic rule in dealing with ransom demands is never pay the ransom since it will only guarantee future hostage taking.  This is the what is happening with Trump's capricious decision to close down a large parts of the government in order to please his anti immigrant base.  He has taken the Federal Government hostage and is demanding a ransom. 


This is not a negotiating tactic. Negotiations are successful attempts to find a solution where both sides have some kind of a win, especially if you are negotiating with a party that you want to or need to continue to work with in the future.  Very, very unfortunately, our current president only sees "negotiating" in terms of a "winner" and a "loser" - and his pathological ego cannot allow himself to be seen as the "loser".  He is the worst negotiator I have ever seen. When you negotiate you make sure the other side wins as well as yourself because you will be back at the table with them again, and again, and again. 

As a reminder, the Senate approved the Continuing Resolution to fund the government with a unanimous voice vote.  Trump refused to sign the authorization to fund the government, even though he and his administration had earlier said he would. 


He betrayed his word because he was criticized by Ann Coulter and Rush Limabaugh, for goodness sake! These are media personalities whose responsibility is to build and keep an audience.  They do so by simplifying their message to get a small segment of the populace - which is a big enough media audience to make them a lot of money. 


But he is a president whose responsibility is to govern a complicated country, and he is supposed to do so by juggling complicated needs of that diverse country.  He acts like a radio talk show host, not the head of the executive branch of government.  He is ever simplifying his message, like a radio talk show host, to attract and keep his audience, which is a relatively small segment of interests in a vastly more complicated country than he is aware of.

Which leads us to the first rule of negotiating - you must be trustworthy.  If nobody can trust your promises then you can't be negotiated with.  Nobody in their right mind could ever trust anything that our current president says or promises.  He just says whatever his current audience wants to hear. So people learn that what this deeply flawed person says is meaningless.


Which leads us to the second rule of negotiating - you must find the decision maker.  Who on earth would that be?  Rush Limbaugh?  Laura Ingraham?  Ann Coulter?  Sean Hannity?  It is certainly not the current president as he has proven that his decisions are made of jelly if he is criticized by the Right Wing Media.


Which leads us to what is really going on here - our current president is not negotiating.  Our current president is not governing.  Our current president is doing the only thing he knows how to do - campaigning - Building his Brand.  And he is campaigning by doing what he thought got him elected in 2016 - by speaking only to and for his base - the hard right wing of the Republican Party.


To bad we don't have an actual president rather than a media personality. 

Friday, January 18, 2019

Why I think our president is controlled by Russia

There were two huge stories that broke in the last week.


First, we found out that the FBI was so concerned about Trump's behavior that it opened an investigation into whether he was secretly working on behalf of Russia.  Secretly?  Seems pretty much out in the open to me, but the fact that the FBI is investigating this is one of the biggest stories in U.S. history.


Second, we found out that Trump hid the content of his in person meetings with Putin.  He met without any Americans present other than an interpreter, and he confiscated the notes.  Sounds like someone taking directions from his KGB officer to me.


So, these are two reasons I think the president of the United States is being controlled by Russia.  There are more...


What does Russia want?  To destroy its arch rival, America, both domestically and internationally. 


Internationally, how has Trump weakened America?  He destroyed our influence in the Far East by pulling out of the Trans Pacific Partnership in which America was the key player in trade and commerce in the Far East.  Now we are gone and China is the key player.  America loses.  Putin is happy.



Internationally, Trump attacked our neighbors - Canada and Mexico - and pulled out of NAFTA, only to re-establish a modified NAFTA and called it??? Trumpfta?  Putin laughs.

Internationally, Trump pulled out of the Iranian nuclear deal where America was the controlling power, only to have the rest the signatories stay in without America.  America loses influence.  Putin smiles.


Internationally, Trump attacks and threatens to pull out of NATO.  WHAT?  There is nothing more important to Putin and the Russians than destroying NATO so that Putin can recapture the Balkan states and re-establish the old Soviet Empire, but now it would be the Russian Empire - which was all it ever was, turns out the Communism part was just the cover story for Russian hegemony and empire.  Putin dances in the streets!!!


How about domestically?  How is Trump destroying America domestically?


Domestically, Trump has done all he can to destroy the government internally by firing, ignoring, and understaffing all of the Government departments, from the State Department to the Department of Energy - see Michael Lewis's "The Fifth Risk" - a terrifying exposure of how the protections of the government of all of us is being destroyed. Putin rubs his hands gleefully.


Domestically, Trump has encouraged and empowered white supremacists and racists and drives as many wedges between Americans as possible.  Putin watches in amazement.


Domestically, Trump has started trade wars, ignoring how trade wars helped kick off the Great Depression of the '30s.  Putin should be worried about this one because Depression becomes a world wide disaster.


Domestically, Trump has shut down the government for 27 days so far, hurting government workers, supporting businesses, and those served by the government workers - us.  Just to show Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, two pretty horrible people, that he is STRONG, STRONG, STRONG!!  Of course all he is showing is that he is w e a k, w e a k, w e a k by cowering before their disapproval.  Putin has to slap himself in the face to make sure he isn't dreaming this one is so good for him.


I could go on forever, but I just get worn out thinking about all the ways Trump is hurting America and helping Russia. 


The fate of the country is in the hands of the Republicans.  Which is to say, the fate of the country is in the hands of those conservatives who continue to support Trump and approve of Trump and who frighten cowardly Republican Senate and House members who are afraid, afraid, afraid of losing their jobs.


Only the Republicans can stop Trump. The Democrats do what they can, but it is up to Republicans.


The shutdown?  Just have the head of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, bring to the floor the continuing resolution to fund the government that they passed unanimously last time with a voice vote, which was passed by the House and re-sent to the Senate.  It will pass again in the Senate.  Send it to the president. He will bitch.  He will complain.  And he will sign it because he doesn't have the sand to veto it.  He is a coward.


Time for Republicans to admit what is obvious - their president is under the control of Russia, and their president is destroying America both domestically and internationally.


It is time.....

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Trump - the One Trick Pony

When Trump is in trouble he trots out his one major trick - The Wall - or, more precisely, Be Very Afraid of Brown People. He sees impoverished and threatened families fleeing Central America as dangerous and filthy infestations which need to be turned back, with maximum cruelty preferably.


Trump is feeling the real walls, the walls of exposure and possible prosecution, closing in on him.  And we can reliably count on his whipping his base into a fear frenzy as a way to rescue him.


His first statement of his campaign in 2015 was closing off the country to brown people.  His big campaign push last year in the mid term elections was to create a false crisis of The Caravan of invaders coming up to infect the purity of our (white) country. 


Now, once again it's The Wall, The Wall, The Wall.  Shutting down the government to put up The Wall, The Wall, The Wall.


I suppose his speech, a rerun of his normal fear mongering speech repeated ad nauseum, appealed to his shrinking base, but I found it pretty - nauseating.


There is no crisis at the wall.  Illegal border crossing are about a tenth of what they were in the early '00s.  Most drugs come through airports. Of course, it is true that most immigrants are not white...


I do not find it comforting that our president is so weak that criticism from Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter will make him shut down the government and create ever growing hardship.


He is a One Trick Pony - fear brown and black people.  (And I guess his other tricks are do whatever Russia or the hard right media tell him to do)  Not much of a leader....

Saturday, January 5, 2019

It's Time for America to Recover Its Character

America's character has fallen so far in the last two years under the control of Trump the Republicans. An old saying is that the fish starts to rot at the head, and the head of our Administration is a sadly and terribly rotten character.  And, I am afraid I have to say much the same for his Republican base that so avidly supports this truly horrible person. 


What happened to Christians in this country?  They went from the Christ of love and forgiveness, of caring and compassion, to the Trump of Grab 'em by the Pussy, and Getting Rid of People from Shithole Countries. 


The list of examples of the extreme lack of character of this president goes on forever.  His indifference to the suffering he causes in so many ways - the latest is in shutting down the government in order to keep brown people out of the country causes suffering of the government workers who go without paychecks, causes suffering of tax payers who don't get refund checks, causes suffering of tourists who go to parks which are understaffed, filthy and dangerous, and causes suffering of brown people fleeing crime and poverty seeking asylum in what used to be the Land of the Free.  His indifference to all people other than himself is endlessly appalling to me.


His lack of character showed up initially, of course, in his campaign as he actively sought the assistance of a hostile foreign power, Russia, to propagandize for him and against his opponent.


His lack of character showed up immediately upon taking office by refusing to divest his assets and put them into a blind trust - thus actively inviting bribery by foreign powers and domestic political actors to enrich him by using his properties.


His lack of character has been showing up for as long as he has been a public figure by his endless bullshitting and lying about essentially everything that he talks about.


His lack of character shows up with his endless pandering to the white supremacists in his base, especially by saying that there were "very fine people on both sides" in Charlottesville - I don't think there were any very fine people amongst the white supremacists carrying torches and shouting racist filth.


His lack of character showed up in his Trump University which was a scam for which he was found guilty and had to pay fines.


His lack of character showed up when he stiffed his vendors in building his towers and casinos, which failed.


His lack of character showed up when he mocked a disabled reporter.


His lack of character showed up when he was indifferent to the suffering of the brown people is Puerto Rico after a disastrous hurricane.


His lack of character shows up when he supports our border control ripping children from their parents and putting them in cages or barracks apart from their parents.


His lack of character shows up when he puts his cabinet members at a table and demands that they shower him with praise in front of cameras.


There are many, many more examples of this man's complete lack of character, and I am tired of thinking about them.  Suffice it to say that his lack of character is his most defining feature.


The "Alt Right", otherwise better know as white supremacists, will never abandon him. But when will more conservatives find their conscience and turn on him?  What will finally make them gasp in horror and disgust, the way he makes liberals and independents gasp in horror and disgust many times a week? 


It is time for America to get tired of this endlessly narcissistic, ignorant, and pitiless headline stealer. 


It is time for America to recover its character.