Why is faith no longer good enough?
Science is essential to Western Exceptionalism.
Creationism is not science. It is flawed theology. There is no need to prove God or God’s role in the world. Why is faith no longer good enough?
Obama, Debt and History
Obama is not perfect, but we have 4000 years of human civilization to tell us he is on the right side. No society, including the Soviet Union, had a hard time making sure a few people are rich and powerful. Only Liberal American (1932-1968) and those Nasty European Social Democracies found a way to allow a few to get rich while the many climbed out of poverty.
Here are the facts.
1) We had no debt problem until conservative voters elected Ronald Reagan.
2) Two moderates George H. Bush and Bill Clinton put us back on track to fix the problem.
3) Conservative voters rejected that fix and unraveled it by electing George W. Bush.
Excuse me if I don’t trust the judgment of conservative pundits, politicians and voters. When it comes to debt they simply lack any credibility what so ever.
If anyone has data, no assertions, showing that Reagan or W made this better, i.e. Before < After, I would love to see it.
Robert Byrd and a History of Poltical Racism in America
Now that a child of the Civil Rights movement is President and he is accused of the same thing. Weird how that works. Same lie. Different decade.
When I posted this brief comment on Facebook, I was asked if I were “trying to distract folks from the fact that Byrd was a Democrat?” Here is my Response.
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Oh no. He was a Democratic, but a conservative Democrat. Robert Byrd made a courageous choice soon after. Southern Democrats traced their roots back to their opposition to reconstruction. The Republicans under Lincoln oversaw the greatest expansion of Federal power since the transition from the Articles of Confederation to the US Constitution. Each of the Reconstruction Amendments increased Federal authority and reduced the ability of states to abuse their own inhabitants. Read the rest of this entry »
Why isn’t the economy bouncing back faster?
Why isn’t the economy bouncing back faster? This graph helps you understand what is happening. It uses the number of jobs in September 2008 as the benchmark. This was the month the financial markets crash started. On the chart that job number equals 100. Then it charts percentage changes in each employment section against that number.
Two lines tell the story: declining government jobs and a weak construction sector.
You can see that in the first year there was an overall decline in almost every sector except the government jobs and Education/Healthcare 9unfortunately these are lumped together). The sharpest declines came in Construction, Mining (includes drilling) and manufacturing. These industries saw a rapid decline in consumer demand as the markets crashed. Education and health care were protected as necessary government spending continued. Take this away and things could have been much worse.
Mineral production–coal and oil—bounced back the fastest. This too is related to necessary spending. We have a machine driven economy, and consumers can only cut back so much. Other industries like “information†were not necessities and have stabilized at a level 10 to 20 percent below pre-crash levels.
On the other hand, manufacturing and construction remains down. Consumers are delaying big ticket items like cars because of job uncertainty. Who wants a new car payment when they might lose their job next month? Imagine you are a teacher, police officer or fire fighter and you hear calls for budget cuts. Do you make a big purchase or wait? I would wait. Most rational people do.
Construction also has a special problem. Consumers “invested†in new houses at a record pace during the 2000s. Too many of them found themselves owing more than their house was worth. They can’t sell their house and move to a new city for a job. Instead, they have to pay down their debt (deleverage) before they can make a new home purchase.
This behavior creates an incredible weight that holds the entire economy back. New home sales often spur other purchases. New homes need refrigerators, washing machines, TVs, beds and many other smaller items. People in older homes will replace a broken item, but they rarely replace everything at once.
Add to this the fact that many young adults have large amounts of student loans. This is also new. Previous generations of college student enjoyed a heavily subsidized education. In the 1980s state governments covered as much as 80% of the costs. Today that is shrinking to less than 40% in most cases. Instead of building a ladder for the next generation to climb, selfishness is burning it. This selfishness not only hurts the individuals but it is also retarding the economic recovery.
Finally, you can see for yourself that government jobs started to decline in the middle of 2010. This is also new. In the post-World War Two era government jobs had never declined in a recession. Even in the Reagan era the federal government INCREASED defense construction spending and local governments, with aid from Washington, maintain their highly skilled workforce.
So why is this economy different? 1) The financial collapse uniquely crushed the construction industry. Until something is done to drive down consumer debt, consumers can not return to their role driving economic growth. 2) Cuts in government spending and employment are making things worse. There is no way to grow an economy by subtracting. Growth requires addition. It is simple math.
When a Bain is a Bane
Why does Bain Capital matter? Romney has told us he will use the skills learned at Bain to make decisions as President. What did he learn? He learned that he could raid wealth created by workers, liquidate their pensions and then redistribute the wealth to his investors.
What are his plans as President? He will continue the Bush strategy of redistributing Social Security revenue to the top 2% as income tax cuts. Romney then will implement the Ryan plan that calls for privatizing Social Security and turning Medicare into a coupon programs. This will destroy the American middle class.
At a certain point conservatives need to stop crying that Obama is a meanie, grow up and look at the facts. The conservative plan divides Americas into the chosen and the forsaken. It is based a greed. It is based on the sick idea that the poor in America have it good and the rich have it bad. Only in the fantasy world of conservative talk radio does this make sense.
Why must Conservatives Bear False Witness?
Prepare yourself for the latest conservative lie about Obama. First the FULL quote “Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
True or false? Absolutely true. Roads and bridges are built and maintained by the government. Public infrastructure, socialism, is NECESSARY for our quality of life. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said, Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.
Now the lie. Conservatives are claiming Obama meant “If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
What part of thou shall not bear false witness is hard to understand?
ObamaCare expands Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness
Eddie is a historian and a good friend of mine. He wrote about what Obamacare means for him and his family.
“One more reason I favor the Affordable Care Act: Lanetta, my beautiful, wonderful bride of 26 years, will at some time in the future need a double lung transplant. Our insurance has a life-time maximum. It very well might not cover the transplant and fairly certain ly not all of the follow-up. This is a personal issue to me and many others. Repeal the law and you may well be signing the death certificate of many people.”
What Eddie didn’t say was that he is a good scholar, but when he wife was diagnosed he was no longer FREE to change jobs. Lanetta had a preexisting condition and if Eddie changed jobs she would have lost coverage all together. Now, millions of individuals like Eddie and Lanetta are free to choose their future. That is real freedom. May they have many more happy years together.
We Need Public Institutions
The solution to this problem is obvious. More tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, while slashing education and job training.
Workers can always take out another loan and pray their job lasts long enough to pay it off.
***UPDATE****
ON the very same day Romney said of Obama
I don’t think the contrast could be any sharper.
***2nd UPDATE***
In a conversation today I remembered an early incarnation of the Romney plan. Speaker John Boehner had released a jobs plan. Here is how it was supposed to work.
Awesome plan. Make America better, by making American workers poorer.
JFK on Liberalism
“If by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”