The audacity of right-wing hope

The Wall Street Journal actually had an editorial today suggesting Obama should govern like Reagan. Tax cuts, deregulation, yada yada yada. Talk about audacity.

Can we revisit this for a moment? Reagan abandoned fiscal responsibility at the first blush of recession. He spend more and borrowed more than any other president in history, and set the stage for the Bushes who followed to do the same. He left with an overheated economy (read:bubble) about to pop and a savings and loan crisis waiting in the wind.

He got out of town just in time that his veep, the one-term Bush, took the blame.

In fact, it's exactly like this Bush leaves office, except that the mess is banks and not S&Ls, and the dollars are much bigger. And for six of eight years, there was was no democratic congress to blame.

We've seen how conservatives and Republicans govern for 28 years now. What a mess. Obama should govern in a very different direction.

Optimism and How To Profit From It

NewAdvertising writes the following about the new Pepsi campaign:

All this is carried out with relentless optimism for the future...aimed squarely at the Optimistic Millenials identified by the Pepsi Optimism Project. They're the generation that, whenever we do research with them, expresses an enormous longing for the optimism of the sixties.They envy the generation's protest, music, dress, sexual mores and so much more. They believe they missed a critical period in relatively recent history. See a earlier blog post from The New Advertising on the 60's & 70's generation vs Pepsi's New Millennials.

So, if you are corporate America looking at this information, what do you do with it? Work toward leading a country toward a more just, less fascist, more creative, compassionate society?

Uh, yeah right.

Tom Waits once said he never licensed his songs for commercial use because Corporate America would strip out the message and attach the meaning to the sale of a product; buy this thing, attain the feeling that the song originally evoked. And that is precisely Pepsi's plan:

So it's no surprise that the look of both the site and the video is 60's pop-art-like. Just take a look at Roy Lichenstein 1962 painting "Art" ...

When we look at the damage that capitalism causes, it can really be reduced to a simple idea that everything - everything - has a monetary value and no value otherwise.

Memos to the madmen in DC

Wow. Just getting over the Obama win hangover, and it's been forever since I posted. So a few quick memos for the new year:

Memo to the GOP: Don't freakin' lecture me. After six years in which GW and the GOP Congress turned a surplus into a sinking swamp, with your president handing a trillion-dollar deficit to Obama, you have no credibility when you say anything about deficits, spending or debt. Nothing new here, either; Reagan turned a $50 billion deficit under Carter into a $200 billion-plus gap. The first Bush raised the ante to $400 billion.

Plus, y'all seem to always leave a bank or S&L collapse when you leave the White House. This time, it was your president, his Treasury chief and his Fed chief who demanded a $700 billion bailout, no questions asked, and no one gets hurt. Now you want us to believe the kooky conservative few who voted against it are the real voice of a fiscally stingy GOP.

Really, if any of you are really worried about deficits and balanced budgets, you should be glad we're in charge.

Memo to historic revisionists: FDR rocked. Based on a couple of widely dismissed academic studies that did things like not count working on roads, bridges and great buildings as working, the righties on Fox and elsewhere keep saying that the New Deal didn't help ease the Great Depression.

In fact, of course, unemployment fell every year but one -- the one in which FDR listened to clueless conservatives and backed off.

But let the academics debate that. FDR got elected four times. Americans sure thought things were getting better under him.

Memo to journalists: Get real. So some web site got a couple of porn kings to say they'd like a government bailout, and everyone has to pick it up? Giving the right wing fodder to tout it as 'Obama bailing out porn." Hell, I'd like a bailout. Want to interview me?

Nonsense. This is the biggest government mess is years, money is going all over the place without any accountability, and you want to focus on guys who won't see a dime?

You Know, I Almost Feel Sorry For Dubya

Almost, but not quite. When I got up off the floor from laughing at the video of the leader of the free world being assaulted by footwear, I read the AP article about the incident. I was shocked to read the following:

In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt.

Um, in what culture is throwing shoes at someone anything other than a sign of comtempt??? I mean, have you ever, anywhere in the world, been at what passes for a wedding and heard someone say:

Here comes the bride and groom. Let's celebrate their magical day by pelting them with shoes!

Or have you ever seen a proud couple bringing home their first-born and thought:

Damn, I wish I had some stiletto slingbacks to hurl at them to demonstrate the joy I must feel.

I could go on, but power under the bridge where we now live is limited, and we must preserve the lights to stave off the increasingly-aggressive rats who seek out our dwindling supplies of food ...

Here's a simpler TARP plan

So we're not actually using the $700 billion set aside for buying bad mortgages to buy bad mortgages? Interesting. What are we using it for? Whatever Hank Paulson wants to do with it.

This will make government budgeting so much easier. You just hand the money to appropriate secretary and let him spend it however he wants.

Anyway, I see they've appropriately name this the Tarp program. Because once these Bush clowns are through with us, they'll buy us all big blue tarps to set up as shelters in the homeless camps.

No bailouts for Main Street!

I have to say all this talk about letting the automakers go bankrupt is getting on my nerves.

We're hearing all the usual junk from the right about socialism, our tax dollars, overpaid workers, free-market principles and such things as the GOP seems to view this as a chance to regroup. Even Glenn Beck, who claims to be a populist and who shills for Chevy, is on the case.

But c'mon. Didn't this stuff about socialism go out the window when we voted to hand the banking industry $700 billion? Ditto for free market principles; the market capitalists of Wall Street wasted no time in coming to beg for our money. They gave it up.

As to the idea of blowing 'our tax dollars,' that cat's out of the bag, too. We're $10 trillion in debt as a nation; we're in the hole a trillion for just this year. Tack $25 billion on to the end, and no one alive today will be repaying it. (Hell, if GM can escape its debt by declaring bankruptcy, maybe the country should try it.)

The other thing they're doing is trying to make us hate auto workers, because they have good retirement plans, health care and can't be laid off easily. Hey folks; maybe instead of asking why they have this stuff, more people should ask why more of us don't.

See, what we're talking here is perhaps 3 million jobs. Maybe more; they say one in 10 american workers, all told, are supported by the auto industry. We're talking about shutting down a good part of what little industry America still has. If this goes, we're a nation that manufactures little more than the caps for tubes of toothpaste and the thong part of things (the soles come from Korea.)

Besides, think about it this way. We can pay $25 billion, demand concessions and try to save 3 million jobs. Or we can let Obama try to use the government to create 3 million high paying jobs to replace them. How much do you think that will cost?

Going, Going ...

Reading my colleague's post below, I am moved to ask the question:

What is this "Ford" thing I hear about occasionally?

Seriously, walking the dogs last night, I counted 20 vehicles parked on my street. One was a Saturn, one a Mercury Topaz (with a Power Forward Toyota license plate frame, so it had been traded in for a Toyota), and two were American pickups at least 20 years old.

So 80 percent of the cars were non-American.

Blaming the American auto industry's problems on union members and labor costs doesn't address the biggest problem any manufacturer can have - no one wants to buy the shit they're producing.

You, me and AIG

We've always known Americans are generous to a fault. But at least the bastards on Wall Street could ask.

This morning it was just Treasury chief Hank Paulson and Fed chief Ben Bernanke, the bailout boppsy twins, tearing up that $123 billion bailout for AIG and replacing it with a $150 billion plan. Sort of like buying a Ford Focus and the dealer handing you the keys to a BMW at the same price.

I think we the taxpayers get a little bigger piece of the insurance giant, which is throat-deep in bad paper from underwriting all the mortgage derivatives that are causing so much trouble. But at this point, no smart investor would want to own any piece of AIG.

After all, this crisis couldn't have happened without the good folks at AIG.

Why will $150 billion work when $123 billion wouldn't? Don't ask, because the twins are just guessing. There are endless trillions of derivatives in play, and most of them have ties to AIG.

When the bailout was approved, the hope certainly was that banks would realize the party was over and start behaving responsibly. They haven't -- witness the stories about bailout funds going for big bonuses and to lobby Congress. It's still business as usual.

I certainly expect the next administration to lay down the law to these clowns. But there's no telling how much more good money the twins will throw after bad by the time these Bush clowns get shown the door.

Followup

I asked my wife who she would have voted for, McCain or the Sleestak. She hestitated, and asked, "Who would McCain's running mate be?"

"The same as the ticket he had, Palin," I answered.

"Then I'd have had to go with the Sleestak," she said.

Post-Mortem

- On the day when a black man reaped the ultimate benefit of the nation extending constitutional to people of all races, blacks in the "liberal" state of California voted overwhelmingly to take away the constitutional rights of a different subculture. I understand the historical and socio-political context of the black vote on Prop. 8. It doesn't excuse the behavior. It is shameful, and should cause a thorough soul-searching in the hearts of black voters everywhere. The politics of hate and division still work, and they can work with anyone, anytime.

- Since we're talking about race ... much has been said about the election of Obama to the White House. But really, given the mood of the nation, and given how badly the Republicans had thoroughly and comprehensively fucked up our foreign policy, our economy, and given what McCain was offering (Palin? Come on! And a tax credit to purchase individual health care? If you're losing your house, that meant absolutely nothing at all!) one has to wonder how well an eight-foot-tall Sleestak from the Land of The Lost running against McCain would have done. Americans are scared right now, as scared as I can remember them being. I'd suggest that the election result was as much a vote against McCain (and Bush) as it was a vote for Obama.

UPDATE: As usual, the Onion says it more eloquently than I:


http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nation_finally_shitty_enough_to

- Speaking of Palin, did anyone note the body language on stage at McCain's concession speech? Here's how they lined up to wave once more before walking off the stage: Palin, her husband, McCain's wife, McCain. The candidate and his running mate were as far apart as possible, with two people in between. Speaks volumes.

gop, let's go with Palin/Bachman '12!

I'd like to offer conservatives some support today. this election should be a lesson against the wisdom of going with moderates.

So you should think about going with the woman who fired up the base (even though she turned off everyone else) and the woman with the good sense to call for another unAmerican activities commission. Which can't start too soon. A majority of Americans are now unamerican.

Palin/Bachman 2012. Get going.

Go Ahead And Cry, Dad

I called my father tonight, and he told me that he's been crying most of the night. Every time he stops, he said, "The tears just come again."

You might think that he's emotional because he's black. Not only black, but a black man who grew up in the South, where he wasn't allowed to drink from certain faucets, wasn't allowed to sit next to his white friends at the movie theaters, a man who grew up with a bitterness toward America's mainstream that only the truly oppressed will ever know.

One of the most important things my father ever did was to allow his children to grow up without passing along the scars from the slings and arrows hurled at him in his lifetime. And while his bitterness and anger toward the mainstream mellowed over the years, his cynicism remained.

So you might think my father's tears were because he felt past injustices had been righted, that the vote somehow validated his perseverence in the face of adversity.

Not so.

He was looking toward the future.

"Mike - Michael (he never gets that right, but I never correct him, and tonight, he really wanted to get his words right) I have always wondered when this country would get smarter, grow up, mature," he said.

"Tonight, we've grown up."

I couldn't think of anything to say. The best I could come up with was, "Go ahead and cry your fuckin' eyes out, Dad."

Voting matters

I voted today. It mattered. The country is different tomorrow. Any kid really can grow up to be president.

Obama has a lot to do in the next four years. But just with today's election, nothing will ever be the same.

You don't get to say that very often.

McCain camp classless to the end

Well, we're winding to a close and on the final weekend, McCain and his supporters once again found a way to reach a new low.

There was the 529 group running ads from crazy preacher Wright -- whose 'god will judge america' rants were shameful but no different from the rants of preachers like Jim Hagee that McCain has aligned himself with.

Well, different in a couple of ways -- he's black, and the others were white, and the idea of a fat bald white preacher ranting isn't nearly as scary to voters. And Wright was saying we'd be judged for historical racism, not gays and liberalism. Wright makes us uncomfortable.

(Of course, Libby Dole's shameful ad aimed at her "godless" opponent shows the right will use this tool against white democrats, too. and that it turns off a lot of people.)

Then there was this sudden discovery by Fox News and Drudge and others that a San Francisco newspaper was 'hiding' a tape (on the world wide web, of all secret places!) that has Obama wanting to kill coal with a cap and trade plan. Fair issue, I supposed, though they and Sarah Palin don't mention that McCain supports the same.

And then there were attacks on Obama's aunt, who he barely knows, but an illegal immigrant. I guess it's only unfair to drag Palin's family into the campaign.

So it goes. It's never been clear that McCain appreciates the stuff done in his name, but that doesn't let him off the hook. Here's hoping the GOP is routed and he never lives down the shame.

How much do we really know about McCain

We've heard from McCain that the questions about Obama's past associations are really about his rival's judgment.

But now, as I posted earlier, we know that the man he calls a "PLO spokesman" was funded by a group McCain leads.

Similar associations have also been made between a group McCain joined that supported central american terrorists and thugs in the 1980s. There are photos of him meeting Gen. Pinochet, a dictator, in Chile without preconditions.

And of course, as politico has told us, McCain has spoken out in support of ACORN, the voter registration group.

Now, I'm not sure the guy's really a PLO spokesman, or ACORN is evil. But McCain seems to think they're up there with Pinochet.

So what does it say that he associates with such people? How much do we know about the real McCain?

Now on Fox: McCain financed anti-semitic PLO terrorist!

Surveying the news this morning, I learned on Fox that this election could be decided by a videotape the LA Times has of Barack Obama saying something at a dinner for a PLO terrorist.

McCain has put this forward. ABC News reports today on a radio interview in which McCain referred to Obama's toast for a "PLO Spokesman." The name is Rashid Khlaidi, who's a Palestinian activist but a moderate one -- and a college professor, so it's no surprise Obama might go to a dinner.

The Times says it can't release the tape because of a promise with its source. So we don't really know if it's damning or not.

Funny thing, though: We do know, courtesy of the Huffington Post, that John McCain has funded this "PLO Spokesman," distributing a half-million bucks to the pro-Palestinian group he chaired.

Of course, he's actually no more a terrorist than Joe is a Plumber. But if he was, I imagine he'd rather half a half-million bucks than a toast. I'm sure the folks on the right demanding the tape will want to make sure we get all the details of McCain's relationship with this terrorist.

Crawl on Fox News

I got stuck watching Fox News while eating at Der Wenierschnitzel today. While I was nauseated, not by the food but by what passes for "journalism" on that channel (my j-profs would have shot me for behaving like that) I was mesmerized by the crawl on the bottom of the screen ...

"God endorses McCain ... Official: Palin Not 'Completely Crazy,' Ready To Lead ... Obama Is Having Sex With Your Daughter Right Now ... McCain's Economic Plan Will Eliminate Cancer ... Cindy McCain Will Give Hand Job To Everyone Who Votes For Her Husband ... Democrats Cause Bubonic Plague ... Obama: America Can Kiss My Black Ass ... Biden: I Hate Puppies ... "

So much for the "laughable curve"

Arthur Laffer has been making the rounds with his book proclaiming that the 'Age of Prosperity' is over.


He should call it the age of debt.


This is, of course, the guy who came up with the Laffer Curve that told Ronald Reagan he could cut taxes to stimulate the economy and raise revenues in the process, eliminating the budget deficit and national debt and making us all prosperous.


So what happened? Well, the economy did surge, though due as much to Reagan abandoning any plan to stop spending (according to David Stockman, his own budget chief) as to the tax cuts. The annual deficits surged. The national debt we hand to our kids soared from less than $1 trillion over the first 204 years of our nation to around $10 trillion today.


Not only did official spending and annual deficits soar, politicians learned to take wars and other pet projects 'off budget.' And most of them share the blame, though we did best under Bill Clinton and a GOP Congress, and worst under George Bush and a GOP Congress, in terms of fiscal responsibility.


But we're buried in freaking deep by now. More than one in four dollars we pay in taxes now goes for debt service, soon to be one in three. If our mortgaged nation were a mortgaged home, we'd turn in the key and let the creditors take in back.


Worse, perhaps, is how this national lack of responsibility seemed to impact the business world. The tech bubble, the housing bubble, cdos, etc., etc., all fed by an orgy of debt helped along by federal action to eliminate the rules that kept business from sinking into the same hole.

Which would be fine, except that they also got permission to lie about it to investors, and funneled more and more of our retirement dollars into these sinkholes.

This has all come crashing down lately. And it's now pretty clear that the age of 'conservative,' Laffer economics was really an age of debt. What we thought of as prosperity was really just the thrill a gullible college kid might feel when the first credit card arrives in the mail.

You have fun buying rounds for a night or two, then regret it when the bill arrives.

As a nation, we've gotten the bill. And conservative tax-bashers are going to choke when they realize that, yes, we really all have to pay.

Murrow be damned!

Another broadcast journalist has to be credited for lowering the already low standing of the ol' news profession.

After recently serving softballs to John McCain, Florida WFTV anchor Barbara West interviewed Joe Biden with a series of question right out of the Fox News talking points. Ayres, Acorn, you name it.

Fair play aside, she even went as far as to ask if Obama's fairly mild economic proposals didn't make him a Marxist for wanting to 'spread the wealth around.' (This 'redistribution' thing is more than a little silly, since both Obama and McCain just voted to redistribute $700 billion in taxpayer dollars to the big banks.)

But really, Marxist? She actually quote Karl, and Biden asked the obvious question -- is this a joke? -- but she was instead serious, or thought she was.

Now, I learned in journalism school about Edward R. Murrow, the broadcaster who helped take down Joe McCarthy and bring an end to the redbaiting of fine Americans for political gain.

Ms. West probably did, too, but now it sees she's joined the right wing brigades who want to bring this back. We've come to expect this from Fox and politicians like Palin and Bachman, the woman who called for loyalty investigations quite recently.

But from a local newscaster? Shameful.

Get Rich The McCain Way!

At a recent campaign stop, McCain told his audience, "I want you to be wealthy." Wow, that's taking a controversial, hard-hitting stand.

Sorry. What I really want is to do is become a multimillionaire the McCain way - marry someone rich!

President McCain - America's First Kept Man.