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The “economic stimulus” plan being hammered out by Bush, Bernanke, and the Democrat controlled Congress is a farce and a scam, and a slap in the face of every American citizen-except maybe the top 1%. Worse, once passed, it will add another $145 billion debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren so that people can get a one time cash infusion of $500 - $800 a piece.

Hey, I’d like to have some extra greenbacks in my wallet too, but at what cost? At to what real benefit? And why are those people most likely to really feel some benefit from the money excluded completely from the plan?

Let’s look at the cost-$145 billion. Last time I checked we were running a deficit budget, so where is this money going to come from? The government wants to send every taxpayer a check for up to $800. That’s not a tax credit that would just decrease this years tax receipts, that’s cash out of the treasury, cash that isn’t there to spend. How will the government finance this? More borrowing from our foreign friends? The answer is simple- future generations of Americans- our children and their children- will bear the burden of this ultimately futile give-away. The government will get the money from somewhere-hell, they may just print some more currency and inject it into the system (which of course would make the dollar worth even less, making the “stimulus” part of the plan null and void at the gate)-and our progeny will have to pay. It’s just another play now, pay never kind of scheme that politicians love to pull out, because everyone feels good today and they get to say they did something helpful. The ‘pay never’ part means that they (the politicians) and the benefactors (today’s taxpayers) will be dead long before the debt borrowed for the “stimulus” is paid off.

To recap so far- THE GOVERNMENT DOESN’T HAVE $145 BILLION TO GIVE YOU. DO YOU REALLY WANT THEM TO SHACKLE YOUR KIDS’ FUTURE EARNINGS SO THAT YOU CAN HAVE AN EXTRA $800 RIGHT NOW? DON’T YOU LOVE YOUR KIDS???

Secondly, who really benefits from this “stimulus” package anyway? Well, ostensibly, every taxpayer will get a check from the government. Then there are tax breaks for businesses, so they can

“make major investments in their enterprises this year. Giving them an incentive to invest now will encourage business owners to expand their operations, create new jobs, and inject new energy into our economy in the process. ” -Bush, 1-18-08

The Democrats want an extension on unemployment benefits too. So far, both parties are embracing the worst element of the plan, the cash give-away. They are using the tax breaks for businesses and the social program extensions as bargaining chips so that each side can claim they did more. So at first glance, it seems that the beneficiaries of the “stimulus” plan would be Americans who pay taxes, maybe businesses, and maybe the unemployed somehow. While this may look good- after all every one benefits, right?-it is really just smoke and mirrors. The whole point of an economic stimulus plan is to stimulate the economy, but we don’t need stimulus. We need reform. The game of borrowing, shifting, bribing, and pandeirng is what got us to where we are- well, that and a bunch of spend-thrift dunces running the show-and this plan seeks to solve the problem using the same tried and failed strategies. “Give ‘em a bunch of cash and they’ll forget how bad things are for a bit,” seems to be the political strategy of the day.

So who are the real benefactors of this “stimulus” plan? Well, Fed Chief Ben Bernanke gives it all away.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke entered the stimulus debate Thursday, appearing before the House Budget Committee to endorse the idea of putting money — as soon as possible — into the hands of those who would spend it quickly and boost the flagging economy.

Especially important is making sure a plan can put cash into the hands of poor people and the middle class, who are most likely to spend it right away, he said, though the Fed chairman added that research shows affluent people also spend some of their rebates. -AP

Gee Ben, why don’t you just have the government send all that money directly to the business community and cut the middle man out altogether? I mean, how can $800 really help anyone, except for the Chinese who make all the crap that they hope you will buy at Wal-Mart, or the oil barons and shieks if we use the money as the president contends, “to help meet their monthly bills, cover higher costs at the gas pump, or pay for other basic necessities.” Sure you could rush out and spend the cash on things you don’t need, or you could pay off a bill, maybe two, or maybe your $800 will help cover the overdue mortgage for one more month, thus forestalling the foreclosure man for another day. But beyond that first month, what kind of stimulus benefit does this really create? None at all. And if you believe that it will you should have your head examined. You’ve fallen for more of Bush’s fuzzy math.

Recap so far-THE GOVERNMENT DOESN’T HAVE THE MONEY TO GIVE AWAY. IF YOU LIKE THIS PLAN, YOU DON’T LOVE YOUR KIDS. $800 WON’T MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES OF MOST PEOPLE ANYWAY-AT BEST IT WILL PAY OFF SOME CREDITOR OR END UP IN THE WAL-MART SAVINGS ACCOUNT. IF YOU THINK THIS PLAN WILL HELP OUR ECONOMY MUST BE A POLITICIAN.

Finally, since these “economic stimuli” are all aimed at taxpayers, the working poor and others at the lowest rungs of economic society get no “stimulus” at all, and these are the folks whose lives would most greatly be impacted by a cash infusion. $800 could rent a warm room, or maybe get a little extra food into the kids’ bellies for a change. It could provide comfort for a short time to someone who really needed it. But, nah, those people, many who are employed full time at several part-time minimum wage jobs and thus have no federal income tax bill don’t need help, right? They don’t pay taxes anyhow, right?

Final recap- THE GOVERNMENT DOESN’T HAVE $145 BILLION TO BEGIN WITH. YOUR KIDS MEAN LESS TO YOU THAN A NEW FLATSCREEN TV. THE $800 IS REALLY JUST A BRIBE TO YOU AND A GIFT TO BUSINESSES WHO ALREADY HAVE ALL THE MONEY. YOU LOVE POLITICIANS WHO WILL SELL YOUR CHILDREN INTO BONDAGE. STIMULUS IS THE BIGGEST WORD GEORGE BUSH KNOWS. ANYONE WHO LIKES THIS PLAN HATES THE POOR AS MUCH AS THEY HATE THEIR OWN KIDS.

So there you are happy campers. The economic “stimulus” plan that promises to keep things as they are, that is, in the shadows and out of control. A plan that does nothing to address the reasons why our economy is a shambles and does nothing to change the status quo. It is less than a band-aid on a machete wound. It is pandering to the public. And it a a complete bipartisan failure. I’ll leave with a few quotes…

“What he believes is that we’ve got to do something that is robust. It’s going to be temporary and get money into the economy quickly,” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Friday on CBS’s “The Early Show.” “It’s going to be focused on consumers, individuals, families — putting money in their pocket. And it’s going to be focused on giving businesses the incentive to hire people, to create jobs.”

Government must “spend the money, invest the resources, give the tax relief in a way that again injects demand into the economy, puts it in the hands of those who need it most and into the middle class … so that we can create jobs.” -Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives

“Putting money into the hands of households and firms that would spend it in the near term” is a priority. -Ben Bernanke, Chariman of the Federal Reserve

Here’s $800 bucks. Go create a job for someone this week-someone in China that is.

“By passing an effective growth package quickly, we can provide a shot in the arm to keep a fundamentally strong economy healthy.” George W. Bush, President of the U.S.A.

Fundamentally strong economy? Healthy? Shot in the arm? Can anyone say “delusional?”

All this will come to pass though, and the underlying problems will be papered over like yesterdays fish. And the hole will get bigger my friends, the hole will get bigger. Without fundamental reform and political restraint there will be no economic reform, only more economic tomfoolery. Without individual restraint and without a solid employment base, there will be no economic growth for the vast majority of Americans.

Enjoy your rebate, brought to you by Fuzzy Math Incorporated.

(cross posted at Common Sense)

As I sat and listened to the Idiot-in-Chief, I wondered if he actually believed what he said or just hopes to hell that we believe it.

He wants the tax cuts for the top one percent to be made permanent, but the ones he is outlining for the rest of America should only be a one-time deal.

Of course the following part really jacked my jaw: Folks at the extreme bottom of the economic rung shouldn’t get squat..because that is considered welfare.

Fark you Frat boy.

Here it is, what the Jackass-in-Chief wants and what lies and half-truths he spewed. Some lowlights:

The economic team reports that our economy has a solid foundation, but that there are areas of real concern. Our economy is still creating jobs, though at a reduced pace. Consumer spending is still growing, but the housing market is declining. Business investment and exports are still rising, but the cost of imported oil has increased.-Ok, the December report on how American’s spent their money showed it was in the toilet, the worst since 1991. The New York Times stated: Strong evidence is emerging that consumer spending, a bulwark against recession over the last year even as energy prices surged and the housing market sputtered, has begun to slow sharply at every level of the American economy, from the working class to the wealthy.

Sorry Bush, but your full of bat guano on that first point right out of the box. The way the government fixes it’s statistics on job growth have been crap for years. Too many variables that should be included in that statistic aren’t.

Wages are stagnant and good paying jobs disappear while the income of the top one percent of Americans that don’t actually work for a living and that love their stocks and hedge funds has continued to grow. To say we are growing and jobs are being created might be true..but what is the average wage of those ‘new’ jobs? The NYT article linked above shows how the lifestyles of average American’s has changed drastically:

One consequence is an upending of the traditional pattern, in which middle-aged children take in an elderly parent. As $15-an-hour factory jobs are replaced by $7- or $8-an-hour retail jobs, more men in their 30s and 40s are moving in with their parents or grandparents, said Cheryl Thiessen, the director of Jackson/Vinton Community Action, which runs medical, fuel and other aid programs in Jackson and Vinton Counties.

The Economic Policy Institute, EPI tells you and shows you graphs and charts on how wages have suffered for the working part of America:

With the release of today’s consumer price index for December—up 0.3% for the month and 4.1% for 2007—we can now examine how real hourly and weekly earnings did over the course of last year (comparing this December to last December).

As shown in Figure 1, both hourly and weekly earnings fell in 2007, a sharp reversal from the gains in 2006. After growing by about 2% in 2006, both hourly and weekly earnings fell, after adjusting for inflation, by about 1% last year.

More from The Shrub’s speechifying:Passing a new growth package is our most pressing economic priority. When that is done, Congress must turn to the most important economic priority for our country, and that’s making sure the tax relief that is now in place is not taken away. A source of uncertainty in our economy is that this tax relief is set to expire at the end of 2010. Unless Congress acts, the American people will face massive tax increases in less than three years. The marriage penalty will make a comeback; the child tax credit will be cut in half; the death tax will come back to life; and tax rates will go up on regular income, capital gains, and dividends. -Notice that he really wants to keep those on top of the foodchain safe, but not anyone else. God forbid their taxes go back up in the form of capital gains, dividends and the estate tax.

For the 99% of American’s that actually work for a living, their income isn’t growing like the income for the wealthy at the top of the economic food chain. From the latest data that is complete:

From 2003 to 2004, the average incomes of the bottom 99 percent of households grew by less than 3 percent, after adjusting for inflation. In contrast, the average incomes of the top one percent of households experienced a jump of more than 18 percent, after adjusting for inflation. (Census data show that real median income fell between 2003 and 2004. Average income is pulled up by gains at the top of the income spectrum; much of the 2.3 percent rise among the bottom 99 percent seems to largely reflects gains by households in the top decile of the income spectrum. In contrast, trends in median income capture the experience of households in the middle of the income spectrum.)

The top one percent of households (those with annual incomes above about $315,000 in 2004) garnered 53 percent of the income gains in 2004.(emphasis mine)

Sadly the reality is..it’s worse than that. The CBPP explained that the enormous gains at the top of the income foodchain caused a rise of income as a whole. But average income dropped between 2003 and 2004, and has not risen appreciably since then. In short, while the top one percent get richer, the middle class is shrinking, as economist Paul Krugman pointed out in a speech earlier this year:

By the time World War II was over, we had become the middle-class society that the baby boomers in this audience grew up in. We had become a much more equal society. That high degree of equality began to go away — depending on exactly which numbers you look at — during the late 70’s, maybe a little earlier than that. And at this point we’re basically back to pre-tax and transfer to the levels of inequality that we had in 1929.

What happened in 1929? The Stock Market crashed and burned.

The final blurb from our Frat Boy in the White House: In a vibrant economy, markets rise and decline. We cannot change that fundamental dynamic. As a matter of fact, eliminating risk altogether would also eliminate the innovation and productivity that drives the creation of jobs and wealth in America. Yet there are also times when swift and temporary actions can help ensure that inevitable market adjustments do not undermine the health of the broader economy. This is such a moment.

I don’t really want to call our Decider-in-Chief a delusional moron or better yet a lying sack of crap, but if that shoe fits… you hold him down and I will stick it on his foot, while I put the other one where the sun doesn’t shine, otherwise known as his behind.

We may not be officially in the throes of a recession, but there is sufficient data to understand why voters are focusing their attention on the economy. While economics is thought to be a function of mathematical equations, the evidence suggests that math is driven by consumer sentiment. As such, the math can rarely predict a recession. Instead, as is often the case, understanding a recession frequently happens well after the fact.

I’ve been amused to watch economists offer their odds on the U.S. slipping into a recession. For example, over the last several months…as the numbers have worsened, former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, has revised his prediction a from one in three chance to a fifty-fifty likelihood we will see a recession. Greenspan isn’t alone in having altered his thinking…and I expect to see more of the same until such time as the math can capture the impact of rapidly expanding consumer pessimism.

Truth be told, December may well prove to have been the first month of a recession. In the constant barrage of numbers and statistics leading up to a recession, we occasionally receive data that captures the prevailing factors that are driving consumer doubts. Today, McClatchy News delivered a relevant snapshot.

WASHINGTON — New data from the Labor Department confirm what most middle-class Americans already know: Inflation is squeezing them.

As consumer inflation rose by 4.1 percent last year, the highest rate since 1990, the prices of basic essentials such as food, gasoline and health insurance climbed far more steeply, explaining why so many Americans are telling pollsters that the economy is their chief concern.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday that the price of food and beverages rose 4.8 percent. At the same time, real weekly earnings failed to keep pace, rising 0.9 percent for the year. In the simplest of terms, a dollar earned bought less.

This partly explains why the economy so frustrates Americans.

“The kinds of things you purchase every day are going up (in price),” said Gus Faucher, the director of macroeconomics at forecaster Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pa. “People who are at the lower end of the income scale are going to feel that more.”

That brings me to another point. If tax cuts are the be all and end all that the GOP suggests them to be, then why is it that they fail to insulate the middle class from a downturn in the economy? The obvious answer is that aside from being a symbolic gesture to most Americans, the tax cuts are simply a drop in the bucket. At the same time, the lion’s share of these tax cuts serve to further line the pockets of those who least need insulating from a faltering economy.

Perhaps the prevailing economic fallacy is the contention that further tax cuts will stimulate the economy. This might be true if the cuts were directed to those most in need of money to spend…the same middle class that pushed the economy into recession based upon their astute ability to recognize that their money buys less.

Instead, the GOP argues that their top-heavy tax cuts will eventually be transformed into investments and jobs. Unfortunately, that strategy fully ignores the fact that people in the middle class need more money; not more jobs. If those who already have jobs…have jobs that won’t allow them to keep apace with inflation…then what benefit will they see from the creation of new jobs…especially when most investors and large corporations are looking to create more lower paying jobs in order to produce more wealth. Even worse, globalization often means that these tax cuts are put into foreign investments that do not create jobs for Americans.

Until such time as economic policy is geared to produce meaningful benefit for the middle class, the economy will remain unstable and vulnerable, the handouts to the wealthy will further concentrate wealth in the hands of fewer individuals, and negative consumer sentiment will more frequently send the country into recession.

Lastly, the unprecedented subprime lending crisis…coupled with the inevitable decline in home values…has the potential to indefinitely stymie consumer optimism. Once the undermining of this last bastion of middle class wealth is realized, I would argue that all economic equations would have been rendered useless. If this happens, the backbone of the U.S. economy may be…like the fabled Humpty Dumpty…beyond reconstruction.

Cross-posted at Thought Theater

When the Bush administration first responded to concerns that the economy was on the verge of recession, they were quick to point to the stable unemployment figures and steady job growth. Well, as with most of what comes out of the Bush administration, the unfolding facts suggest their analysis may have been wrong…again.

The latest reports seem to support the concerns of numerous economists that a perfect storm may be materializing which could plummet the country into recession. The latest data on unemployment and job growth will undoubtedly put wind in the sails of those who believe the economy is tanking as well as force the Bush administration to once again shift their rhetoric.

First a look at the latest data.

From Bloomberg.com:

Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) — Hiring in the U.S. slowed more than forecast in December and unemployment jumped to a two-year high, raising the odds that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by half a point this month to ward off a recession.

Payrolls rose by 18,000, capping the worst year for job creation since 2003, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The jobless rate increased to 5 percent from 4.7 percent in November, while the Institute for Supply Management said growth in U.S. service industries cooled last month.

“This tells you that the strains from credit problems and so forth that have been developing the last six months are starting to bite and they’re biting in a way that now finally draws consumption into question,” said Neal Soss, chief economist at Credit Suisse Group Inc. in New York.

“It’s not a done deal, but if we’re going to have a recession, it’s too late to do anything about it,” said Stuart Schweitzer, global markets strategist at JPMorgan Wealth & Asset Management in New York. “The Fed can’t prevent a recession if one’s in the making, and we’re pretty close.”

The world’s largest economy grew at a 1 percent pace in the fourth quarter after expanding at a 4.9 percent rate the previous three months that was the strongest since 2003, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed last month. Growth for all 2008 was projected at 2.3 percent.

Keep in mind that a recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth…or a decline in GDP. The fact that the fourth quarter GDP barely remained in the black, coupled with the beliefs of many that the downturn (fueled largely by the sub-prime lending crisis and it’s impact on consumer confidence and spending) has yet to hit bottom, seems to suggest that negative growth is just beyond the horizon. While we’re not in a recession at the moment, one would be foolish to imagine any indicators of a strong economy in the short term.

Returning to the rhetoric of the Bush administration, it now appears that the powers that be have taken note of the tepid data…a fact that cannot be encouraging to a Republican party that needs every advantage it can find heading into the 2008 election cycle.

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — President Bush said Thursday that he was considering whether to propose a stimulus package to shore up the economy, the clearest indication yet of a growing concern inside the White House over rising oil prices, the subprime mortgage crisis and the possibility of recession.

“I’m concerned about people losing their homes and paying a lot for gasoline,” Mr. Bush said in an interview with Reuters.

Asked if he intended to do anything more to help people stay in their homes, the president volunteered the idea of an economic stimulus package, although he said he had not made up his mind and would probably not do so until sometime around his State of the Union address, which he delivers on Jan. 28.

“In terms of any stimulus package, we’re considering all options,” Mr. Bush said.

But it is a safe bet that tax cuts, long a centerpiece of the Bush domestic agenda, would be a feature of any administration initiative. And it is an equally safe bet that Democrats, who are contemplating their own economic stimulus package, would object, saying further tax cuts are unaffordable.

Mr. Bush has repeatedly said economic fundamentals are strong, a theme he is likely to echo Monday in Chicago when he delivers a speech on the economy. But with polls showing that the economy has eclipsed Iraq as the leading concern among voters, and with Democrats warning of a “Bush recession,” it has become increasingly apparent that inside the White House, there is a growing feeling that he cannot leave the economy to its own devices in his final year as president.

I’m of the opinion that the election year dynamic won’t help the President sell his party’s economic credentials or additional tax cuts. Truth be told, the Bush administration’s tax cuts have had little impact on the average American and the Bush apologist’s efforts to tout their success have never gained traction.

Add in the huge deficit, the doubling of the national debt, and the outsourcing of jobs under George Bush and it’s difficult to imagine voters trusting the GOP to solve what ails the economy. I suspect the Democrats will make the case that the President’s tax cuts were little more than a band-aid placed upon an economy in need of skillful stitching…and a handout to those already basking in the bounty of trickle-down tax strategies.

At some point, the voting public has to realize that perpetual tax cuts have little to do with sound economic policy and more to do with assuring that corporate America will fund the political aspirations of their GOP lapdogs. The next time a president dangles a tax treat, it needs to end up in the mouths of those who work hard each day to make ends meet; not in the bank accounts of a few fat cats who are salivating at the thought of another round of tax cuts.

Cross-posted at Thought Theater

One of the largest expenses for the elderly in our nation after healthcare is property taxes. Homes that were purchased forty or fifty years ago for five to ten grand are now appraised at over three hundred grand in some areas of the Northeast. Tack on a property tax bill at thirty dollars per thousand and we have a senior citizen on a fixed income nightmare.

One of the problems with a one for all tax base fee per thousand dollar home value is that it does not in fact take into consideration the age and income level of the homeowner. Granted good old Donald Trump is at the age of AARP membership level but the average senior citizen is not anywhere close to his income level. Should the two have homes and property taxed at the same level? Personally, I don’t think so.

I’m a large supporter of letting senior citizens keep their homes. Not for one second is their one iota of thought in my mind that thinks that we should toss them to the home if they can’t pay the property taxes due. Over at the Houston Chronicle I found this interesting piece on helping the elderly that are able to help themselves…

N.Y. town lets seniors work off property taxes — for $7 an hour
By JIM FITZGERALD
Associated Press

GREENBURGH, N.Y. — Audrey Davison lives alone, gets a $620 Social Security check each month and worries about the sharply rising taxes on her four-bedroom house. Davison, 76, raised her family there and after 43 years, she really doesn’t want to leave Greenburgh.

Greenburgh doesn’t want her to leave, either.

The town is pushing a program that would let seniors work part-time, for $7 an hour, to help pay off some of their property taxes.

“People shouldn’t have to sell their house, move away to a place with less taxes, leave behind their family and friends,” said Town Supervisor Paul Feiner.

He envisions retired doctors mentoring schoolchildren, retired accountants helping with the town’s finances, retired lawyers offering their services for a discount. But there are plenty of less-skilled jobs that need doing, he said.

“It’s not like we’re going to see grandma running the snowplow,” he said. “There are lots of things people can do for the town and it wouldn’t cost us that much to pay them.” - Houston Chronicle

Growing up I had my neighbors in a small town in New England that actually were able to live in their homes till the day they died because the town cared about it’s elderly citizens. After a certain age the elderly based on income paid no property tax to the town. The end result was my neighbor Betty Stein, may she rest in peace, that lived out her days in the home she and her husband bought sixty years prior. Betty was never in the best of health but she loved the kids in the neighborhood and always had treats for my friends and I that played in her yard, searching for crawfish in the pond behind her home, or just stopping in to say hello to her. Betty would never have been able to keep her home if she had to pay property tax on it. Her deceased husbands pension and Social Security were next to nothing.

Betty was wheel chair bound for all the time that I knew her growing up. Neighbors helped her every single day because she was just Betty. She had no living children or family to speak of and maybe that is why she adopted all of us neighborhood brats. What about all the other Betty’s in the nation today? Granted, our workforce in America has changed where both the husband and the wife worked a full career and with or without a pension still struggle to survive in the homes they bought so many years ago. This is an issue that needs to be looked at and solutions or probabilities discovered to save the senior citizens all across America.

Back just a few years ago the cost for just one senior citizen to live in a nursing home was averaging five grand a month for full round the clock care. How I know that little bit of information is simply because that was the bill I received every month for my father with Alzheimer’s Disease. Till we were forced to sell his home, which went entirely from the lawyers hand to the nursing home for his care. We were lucky with Blaire House of Worcester for Dad. Many other cared for elderly family or friends are not. What happens to the individual that gets placed in that home?

Elder Abuse in Nursing Homes
Nursing Home Abuse News

Watching our grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles grow older has its own set of stresses. As those we love fall victim to the ailments of aging, we worry about our lives without them, all the while learning to provide care for them. We look to medicines, doctors, diets, vitamins—anything we can find—in hopes of keeping them healthy and happy and able to live as independently as they wish to. When finally the complications get too great, we turn to an assisted living, nursing home, or other long-term care facility to continue the thoughtful and conscientious care we are no longer able to provide.

Many of these facilities provide excellent care, however, far too many do not. Often understaffed with underpaid and poorly trained employees, many nursing homes push the bottom line so far that they endanger the lives of their patients.

Neglected, abused, and threatened, nursing home residents may suffer physically and emotionally. Painful bedsores, broken bones, or even premature death can result from neglectful and outright abusive treatment. - Nursing Home Abuse

What about the Betty’s that live just next door into their nineties that do not need a nursing home and still want to live their days out in their own damn home? We need to think of people like her or for that matter ourselves because the simple fact is that you or I will be in that position eventually. Would you want to be kicked out of your home because your home was taken for back property tax bills?

Don’t get me wrong, I give full credit to all of our nations senior citizens that work every single day. God bless them for being able to do so. One of my friends and co-workers is eighty four, another is seventy four. There is a difference to what these two friends are doing and what this program is all about. This work for property taxes can work for some people but it is not a fix all for blindly abusing the elderly. Did these people not live through the worst times our nation has ever seen and survived? It sickens me as a political opinion writer to think that anyone could have any argument against giving elderly retired homeowners living below poverty level any kind of break but feel free to speak your peace.

As much as America needs to protect its children with the full diligence that they deserve we need to do the same for our aged and elderly. That is a direct reflection on our society and way of life as a people. We all know that we can do better for all of our senior citizens. Should I mention that senior citizens vote too? That probably isn’t supposed to be relevant when it comes to this topic. I happen to think it is. Everyone forty and younger forget that I wrote that part. All of you forty and older bookmark this page. Maybe we should take back America by taking care of our Grandparents and elder neighbors first.

This liberal stands by all senior citizens no matter what political affiliation and will bitch the loudest when it comes to protecting them. They were the ones that paid the ultimate sacrafice and you can never forget that fact. What freedoms we enjoy today were bought and paid for by the previous generation. Maybe we should look to them as to what really being an American is all about?

In the words of former President Ronald Reagan, “As I fade into the sunset of my life…”

Papamoka

Originally posted at Papamoka Straight Talk

I heard about this 60 year old’s walk from Fanueil Hall to DC from a commenter at AngryBlackBitch’s blog. His name is John Nirenberg, and here is a little about him from his blog entitled MarchInMyName:

What makes this 60 year old, slightly overweight believer in the system take to the street? What makes this life-long servant of the establishment more at home in comfort than in conflict spend an inadequate retirement savings to seek the President and Vice President’s impeachment? What exactly shook me awake from my trance of complacency?

My name is John Nirenberg. I was born in the midst of the Nuremberg Trials. I grew up conscious of that place as both the beginning of the hate and violence that destroyed all of Europe, and the trials that confirmed a powerful moral sense of what is acceptable and unacceptable even in the depths of war.

That’s a long-assed walk this time of year for a guy in his later years. How many of us would do this? How many of us care about our country this much? Not many..and I include myself in that list. He is going to DC to see Nancy Pelosi. He wants Impeachment back on the table. I agree and many of us here agree too, but how many of us care enough to do what he is doing?

Please check out his route, if he is walking through your town, or near you..please show up and give him your support..its the least we can do my dear reader.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could simultaneously 1) narrow the financial gap between CEOs and their lowest-paid employees, and 2) reduce your own tax burden. Well, now you CAN.

The Income Equity Act of 2007 would amend the Internal Revenue Code so that corporations will no longer get tax deductions when they pay “excessive compensation” to their top executives. If any employee is paid more than 25 times what the lowest-paid employee makes, the money beyond that 2500% mark would not be tax deductible.

So if a company’s lowest-paid worker makes $20,000 a year, and any other employee makes more than $500,000 a year, all of that person’s income beyond the $500,000 mark will NOT be tax deductible.

Fair enough? This bill is sure to bring out the usual conservative blubberings about “bootstraps” and “government meddling.” But there really isn’t any government interference involved here. If corporations want to pay their CEOs nine hundred quatrabazillion dollars a year, they still can. They just won’t be getting subsidized by YOUR tax dollars any more.

Conservatives should be in favor of a law like this, since they’re always blathering about “welfare” and “government giveaways.” But it’s become all too obvious in the past few years: Conservatives have nothing against government handouts. They only object when the money goes to needy people.

And besides, companies could continue to pay huge salaries to their top executives and still keep their tax deductions. All they’d have to do is — let’s go waaay out on a limb here — raise the pay of their lowest-paid workers. Riiight, that’ll happen.

If you’d like to start putting the brakes on our downward spiral into Third World status — where two percent of the population has most of the wealth — please click here. Ask your Representative to support the Income Equity Act (H.R. 3876).

It’s one thing to talk abstractly about a house of cards; its another thing to be living with an economy built upon that very premise. Throughout the Bush administration, we have been sold on the benefits of tax cuts for the wealthy; with the promise of insuring a healthy economy. All the while, I believe this paper tiger economy was actually built and sustained by the implementation of artificially low interest rates and shoddy mortgage lending practices.

This shortsighted effort was designed to limit the depth of an economic downturn and to spur equity spending on the part of middle income Americans in the absence of the fundamentals necessary to create real economic mojo. At the same time, the tax cut strategy served to bolster the GOP’s alliance with wealthy benefactors. Unfortunately, the winds of a weak financial environment have returned to find an economy which is all the more vulnerable and far more suspect.

At the moment, we are witnessing a conflation of events that at best signals a tumultuous period of tepid GDP growth. A candid reality check likely suggests we are on the leading edge of a recession that may persist well into 2009. Let’s look at the indicators.

From Bloomberg:

Home prices in the U.S. fell in the third quarter by the most in at least two decades as the subprime lending crisis caused sales to slump.

Home values retreated 4.5 percent in the three months through September from the same period a year before, the most since records began in 1988, according to a report today by S&P/Case-Shiller. It followed a 3.3 percent drop in the second quarter.

Prices will probably keep sliding as foreclosures force more properties on to the market and sales weaken as mortgages become harder to get. The slump threatens to slow consumer spending as fewer homeowners will be able to afford vacations, new autos or home improvement projects.

From Reuters:

Lehman Brothers said the decline in home prices is the start of an extended decline in the market.

“We look for home prices to fall well into 2009 as excess inventory is slowly cleared and foreclosed homes return to the market at a discounted price,” the company said in commentary published Tuesday.

This will translate to a 15 percent decline in national home prices from peak to trough, Lehman Brothers said.

From The Wall Street Journal:

The property value of U.S. homes will fall by $1.2 trillion, and “at least” 1.4 million homeowners will lose their properties to foreclosure in 2008, according to a study released Tuesday by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Council for the New American City.

Global Insight predicted that the economy would grow at a 1.9% rate in 2008, “a full percentage point lower than would have been the case without the mortgage crisis.” It also said U.S. gross domestic product growth would be $166 billion lower next year because of mortgage market problems, and that consumer spending would fall to 2% growth.

If you’ve followed the reports on housing and the subprime lending crisis, the news has gotten progressively worse each time new data is released. Frankly, I see no reason to conclude we won’t see more of the same. Given the fact that so much of our current economic growth has been the result of consumers spending the equity they’ve accumulated from the recent housing bubble, the impact of lower housing prices, foreclosures facilitated by adjustable rate mortgages, generally higher interest rates, and stricter mortgage terms has not yet been fully calculated or understood.

Add in the projections that housing prices will fall at least fifteen percent before the downturn has reached bottom and one begins to see the magnitude of the pending economic slide. While difficult to calculate the amount of spending which results from homeowner’s borrowing against expanding home values, it isn’t difficult to imagine the significance of declining home values…and that ignores the impact of existing inflationary pressures which will no doubt cut into any discretionary spending that remains feasible.

Let’s look more closely at the reports which measure consumer confidence.

From The Associated Press:

With Christmas only a month away, American consumers became more pessimistic about the economy in November, sending a widely watched barometer of confidence to the lowest level in two years amid worries about rising fuel costs and a housing market slump.

The New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index dropped to 87.3, marking a four-month slide and continuing down almost 8 points from the revised 95.2 in October.

It was the lowest reading since 85.2 in October 2005 when gas and oil prices soared after hurricanes flooded New Orleans and shut down a large chunk of the nation’s oil refineries. It also marked the sharpest drop since September 2005 when the index plummeted 18 points from the previous month.

The big worry is that shoppers will take their time returning to the stores this holiday season amid worries that higher gas, an escalating credit crisis and a slumping housing market could push the economy into a recession.

With consumer spending accounting for two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, any further dropoff of consumer spending increases the risks of a recession.

Pretty simple stuff…if you have less money to spend and lack the equity to borrow it, then the only answer is to spend less money. Once that reality sets in, consumer confidence is apt to fall even further in what becomes nothing short of a cause and effect downward spiral. Once this happens, job losses can’t be far behind as retailers and manufacturers are forced to lay off employees in the absence of stable or expanding sales.

From China View:

The Fed also forecast that the unemployment rate would rise to between 4.8 percent and 4.9 percent next year, compared to the previously estimated 4.75 percent for 2008.

In the past two months, U.S. unemployment rate stood at 4.7 percent, a level still considered low by historical standards. Before September, the jobless rate had remained in a range of 4.4 percent to 4.6 percent since the same month of 2006.

With economic growth slowing, the unemployment rate would increase “modestly” next year, stabilize in 2009 and then decline slightly in 2010, the Fed said.

Yes, this anticipated increase in unemployment is minimal…if only that were the end of the story. Projecting unemployment is not only difficult; it is dependent on all of the factors mentioned above. Should the economy follow a worse case scenario, then one would expect unemployment rates to exceed these preliminary projections. Again, all of these measurements feed off of the others and once recessionary momentum is unleashed, predicting the bottom becomes a crap shoot. In an economic downturn, bad news relating to each individual item exerts a downward ratchet effect upon all of the others.

Further, the one item that must improve in order to help halt the effects of a recession…consumer confidence…is often the most difficult to impact and the slowest to respond to signs of improvement. As such, the fix may well be in place long before one begins to see a shift in momentum.

I would equate the economic process to what one might experience if one were in a line of individuals holding hands and spinning in a circle…those anchored in place at the front of the line start moving first and by the time the person at the end of the line starts moving, the momentum is in full swing and apt to send that person flying at a pace they cannot control or maintain. The process (momentum) continues until the links that keep the line functional and turning begin to break (holding hands in this example). The same is true of the economy.

A view of the economy isn’t complete without looking at the stock market…and the news isn’t any better.

From The Chicago Tribune:

Stocks took it on the chin again late in Monday’s session, as investors dumped shares across a broad range of companies.

The Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 237.44 points, or 1.8 percent, to 12,743.44.

Based on daily closing prices, the Dow and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index reached 10 percent declines from their Oct. 9 highs, a move known on Wall Street as a “correction.” It was the first such correction since the late winter of 2003.

The repetition of headline-grabbing market declines so far this month appears to be having self-fulfilling impact on investor sentiment.

Would-be stock market investors these days are like people prone to panic attacks, said Jack Tilton, technical analyst at Channel Trend. “When in the middle of the night with the wind howling do you decide to open that closet door?” he said.

Of all the economic indicators, the stock market is likely the least predictive of recessions. While corrections happen far more often than recessions, the recent weakness doesn’t help consumer confidence. In essence, if the economy is teetering on the edge, a stock market correction may simply provide the final psychological nudge.

I want to close by returning to the politics of economics. The GOP, under the guidance of George Bush, has argued that the tax cuts enacted shortly after the President took office served to move the economy out of recession. If one accepts that premise, then a new recession would seem to suggest two things. One, the tax cuts may not have been responsible for bringing us out of the prior recession…especially since they don’t appear to be capable of keeping us out of a new recession. Two, if we are entering another recession, then perhaps the tax cuts were little more than a political calculation.

If, as I’ve argued, the economy was actually propped up through other means (low interest rates and lenient mortgage terms), then one would hope the GOP would now focus on measures that would actually benefit and buttress the economy. Unfortunately, just today we find Larry Kudlow arguing that the GOP should not only embrace the past tax cuts; they should put forth the argument that they are once again essential to jump start our sluggish economy.

The Wall Street Journal’s Gerald Seib has an excellent column this morning on the threat of an economic downturn and the relevance of tax cuts to reignite the economy. He notes that Republicans have an important opportunity to push tax cuts as a spur to the slumping economy, whereas Democrats are still stuck with a tired tax-hike message and an obsessive desire to undo the Bush tax cuts.

Seib does not go into the incentive effects of lower marginal tax rates versus the one-shot demand-side effects of temporary tax cuts.

Former Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers is now predicting a 2008 recession. But he’s calling for temporary tax cuts for low and middle-class families. Unfortunately, history clearly shows this approach will not work.

Democrats also will try and make the case that taxes should be cut for the so-called middle class, and raised on upper-income earners. This is futile. It’s also bad politics. Taxing successful earners is a tax on capital and investment, which has recently become scarce during the housing crisis.

Republicans should take care to propose lower tax rates on middle-income earners, as well as successful investors. The real supply-side “bang for the buck” comes at the top-end, but across-the-board rate reductions do have positive economic and political benefits. Collapsing the middle-income brackets — 15 percent, 25 percent, and 28 percent — would make a lot of sense.

Given the economic and credit-market concerns sweeping down Wall Street and Main Street these days, it’s time to talk tax cuts. But the right kind of tax-rate reduction must be part of the new-tax-cut riff.

Now you have to admire Kudlow’s moxie…but little else. Try as I might, his argument seems to be akin to suggesting we embrace more of the same despite lacking the evidence needed to substantiate doing so. Truth be told, when the average American looks back on the Bush years…and compares where he or she now stands financially…there should be little doubt that the bubble has burst and the bank account is bleak.

I suspect most Americans will be hard pressed to get on board with a “new-tax-cut riff” when they come to the realization that its being brazenly advanced by those individuals who were fortunate enough to actually benefit measurably from the last round of the Bush administration’s “conning-me-economy”.

As I recall, the average family received approximately $650 in tax savings. The relevant question is whether one believes the resulting economy continued to enrich the average American or merely those wealthy individuals who received the lion’s share of the savings.

Think about it…don’t those individuals promoting another round of “trickle-down” tax cuts have to be better off now than they were seven years ago? If they are, then why should the average American (who isn’t better off) be in favor of rewarding the very people who told us the last tax cuts were an insurance policy against recession as well as a guarantee of a robust economy? How many tax cuts followed by recession do we have to have before we say never again?

Cross-posted at Thought Theater

Greed is a very strong emotion. People want money, because they equate money with security. If you don’t feel safe, then you can use your money to buy protection. If you have enough money to buy a nice house in a nice neighborhood, then you will have a strong police force to protect you. How do I know? All of the people in this nice neighborhood pay high taxes to have the strong police force to protect their assets. Money is security.

Why can’t we spend our tax dollars to have a nice city, instead of a nice neighborhood? Obviously we don’t have enough money to protect the entire city, that is why we choose to protect the wealthy areas of town and let the rest of the city fend for itself. At least that’s the philosophy in most of the country.

For more than forty years the Republicans have told you that they wanted smaller government. They told you that they wanted you to keep your money and spend it as you please. They told you that free markets and free enterprise would solve all of our problems. This language translates into: If you are wealthy and live in a wealthy neighborhood, then you should spend your money on your neighborhood. You should build the best schools, have the best parks, control crime with the majority of police force, and encourage only the wealthiest of citizens to live in your neighborhood. High home prices yield high taxes and discourage the “dregs” of society from living in your town. Wealthy communities draw the wealthy and powerful to live there and result in a disproportionate amount of power in the higher ranks of state and federal government. Forcing you to spend money on surrounding poor neighborhoods only encourages those who don’t have capital to be lazy and stay in their cesspool neighborhoods. And, for forty years those who were well off believed this line of thinking.

To the benefit of the Republican Party this line of thinking trickled down to the middle class in America. The middle class heard the selected bits from this reasoning. They heard lower taxes. They didn’t realize that lower federal and state taxes should be offset by higher local taxes in order to provide services that most people enjoy, like nice schools, parks and police. No, they believed that lower taxes meant more money in their own pocket to buy a new video game or a deep fried cheese sandwich. The middle class don’t have a ton of money, so tax cuts sound like a great idea in the times of inflation when everything seems to be just out of reach. And, when Republicans cut taxes then the federal funding in poorer parts of the country began to dry up. The net effect was to direct more money into wealthy neighborhoods and away from poor and middle class neighborhoods.

In the current conservative Republican mind the only reason for federal taxes is to fund national security. There was a time in our country when conservatives were motivated to build infrastructure in our country. That infrastructure helped business accomplished the difficult task of getting products to customers. It was in the government’s interest to aid airlines, railroads and trucking companies to smooth out all the wrinkles. Today, many believe that the infrastructure is built and it will last forever. Or, if it doesn’t then people can figure out how to maintain these things without the coordination of the government. If the companies that use this infrastructure need it maintained, then they will find a way to pay for it. FedEx and UPS should be out there fixing the airports, filling the potholes and dredging the channels. After all, what are we paying these guys for?

Instead our tax dollars are meant to be spent on our national security. For example, we should be sending our government employees around the Middle East fixing their problems. After all, that is what we are doing in Iraq. After we so quickly destroyed Iraq in creative ways like shorting out all of their electrical generation plants, blowing up bridges and dropping bombs on restaurants we are now trying to fix all of those problems. Our government is using your tax dollars to repair the infrastructure in Iraq. They can’t spend your hard earned money fixing our schools, but the supporters of the war in Iraq complain that the media doesn’t spend enough time glorifying the schools that your tax dollars built in Iraq. Isn’t their something ironic about this picture?

Our government knows that the burning of fossil fuels is changing our environment. They know that the old dirty power plants that are providing us with power could be made cleaner and more efficient with a little government help. But, we are spending our tax dollars rebuilding the power plants in Iraq instead.
In fact, we are spending billions of dollars on our effort in Iraq, but the president vetoes bills of a few million dollars and claims that he does this because of expense. Are we not the richest nation in the world? Well, actually I think Monaco is, but we are probably ranked higher than Iraq. Shouldn’t we be spending our money in our own country before we go around the world “nation building?” Even George W Bush said this in the collection of lies that he spouted while he was campaigning to be our president in 2000. But, George W Bush never was a man of his word. He has always said as little as possible to get elected and then remain vague on the actions that he really meant to take.

As this election cycle approaches we need to keep these lessons in mind. Candidates from which ever party will tell you the minimum information necessary to win your vote. No one will vote for the candidate who will tell us the whole truth. It is just too painful to realize that so many of our previous candidates lied to us and stole our money to pay for the previous generation. Ronald Reagan borrowed money to pay for his tax cuts. We are paying interest on some of those loans today. George W Bush borrowed more money to pay for his expansion of government. Arnold Schwarzenagger borrowed money to pay for the money that Enron stole from California. What do all of these leaders have in common? They are all Republicans that told us that they were going to cut our taxes. They may have cut taxes for the current generation, but they mortgaged those tax cuts on our children. And, who is winning in this capitalist business transaction? Why, that would be the Chinese government that bought a large portion of those government bonds. The Chinese government is now collecting interest on those bonds. In the long run we are paying the Chinese a government handout, when we have people in our country that really need a helping hand.

Some of our children don’t get proper health care, because their parents can’t afford the regular check ups, or the health insurance. When a child gets sick, these parents don’t have the money to take their kids to the doctor. Only when the illness becomes so extreme that an emergency room visit is the only thing that will save their life does a parent take their child for help. And, since they can’t afford the ER expense the visit is paid for with our tax dollars. Doesn’t it make a bit more sense to pay the lower cost of preventative care instead of waiting for a child to get so ill that they need the ER in order to survive? But, this is how we currently spend your tax dollars.

If you look at how your money is being spent today, I believe that most of us would agree that we are wasting a lot of money. And, the situation got this way by politicians pandering to the public and not telling us the whole truth. But, since no politician who told the whole truth could ever be elected we are left with the only possible option. That is, we must learn the truth despite what the politicians tell us. And the only way to learn the truth this way is to be skeptical, cynical and assume the worst about every politician on both sides of the aisle. Then the politicians will be forced to tell you more and more until the truth finally wins out. Doubt demands clarity. Skeptics are not easily fooled, because they expect to be fooled. Cynics are the toughest vote to win, but that only means that truth will win out.

On the other hand, if we continue to be the society that believes everything they hear, read or see without questioning, then we will meet the same downfall of every other “great” democracy. Those hungry for power will tell the people what they want to hear and do what ever they please without a single major challenge. And, democracy will fall to tyranny again.

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Don’t forget what Stephen Colbert said, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit

Reflection