Category Archives: The Economy

November 21, 2010 · 12:09 am

Could She Reach the Top in 2012? You Betcha – NYTimes.com

Frank Rich’s Sunday Column is out and it’s about Sarah Palin. Seems he thinks she could go all the way-especially with Murdock and Fox Noise behind her. And that silly TV series working as paid publicity. And her trashy children all over the place…

Here are a couple of excerpts and a link to the full column in the New York TImes:

But logic doesn’t apply to Palin. What might bring down other politicians only seems to make her stronger: the malapropisms and gaffes, the cut-and-run half-term governorship, family scandals, shameless lying and rapacious self-merchandising. In an angry time when America’s experts and elites all seem to have failed, her amateurism and liabilities are badges of honor. She has turned fallibility into a formula for success.

Republican leaders who want to stop her, and they are legion, are utterly baffled about how to do so. Democrats, who gloat that she’s the Republicans’ problem, may be humoring themselves. When Palin told Barbara Walters last week that she believed she could beat Barack Obama in 2012, it wasn’t an idle boast. Should Michael Bloomberg decide to spend billions on a quixotic run as a third-party spoiler, all bets on Obama are off.

And:

It’s anti-elitism that most defines angry populism in this moment, and, as David Frum, another Bush alumnus (and Palin critic), has pointed out, populist rage on the right is aimed at the educated, not the wealthy. The Bushies and Noonans and dwindling retro-moderate Republicans are no less loathed by Palinistas and their Tea Party fellow travelers than is Obama’s Ivy League White House. When Palin mocks her G.O.P. establishment critics as tortured, paranoid, sleazy and a “good-old-boys club,” she pays no penalty for doing so. The more condescending the attacks on her, the more she thrives. This same dynamic is also working for her daughter Bristol, who week after week has received low scores and patronizing dismissals from the professional judges on “Dancing with the Stars” only to be rescued by populist masses voting at home.

Revealingly, Sarah Palin’s potential rivals for the 2012 nomination have not joined the party establishment in publicly criticizing her. They are afraid of crossing Palin and the 80 percent of the party that admires her. So how do they stop her? Not by feeding their contempt in blind quotes to the press — as a Romney aide did by telling Time’s Mark Halperin she isn’t “a serious human being.” Not by hoping against hope that Murdoch might turn off the media oxygen that feeds both Palin’s viability and News Corporation’s bottom line. Sooner or later Palin’s opponents will instead have to man up — as Palin might say — and actually summon the courage to take her on mano-a-maverick in broad daylight.

Short of that, there’s little reason to believe now that she cannot dance to the top of the Republican ticket when and if she wants to.

via Could She Reach the Top in 2012? You Betcha – NYTimes.com.

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November 20, 2010 · 7:24 pm

Millionaires to Obama: Tax us – Yahoo! News

Nice to see some people are still willing to be both rich and patriotic!

Anti-tax activists everywhere have been loudly arguing for an extension of George W. Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in the United States. Now a group of millionaires is arguing the opposite.

More than 40 of the nation’s millionaires have joined Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength to ask President Obama to discontinue the tax breaks established for them during the Bush administration, as Salon reports.

“For the fiscal health of our nation and the well-being of our fellow citizens, we ask that you allow tax cuts on incomes over $1,000,000 to expire at the end of this year as scheduled,” their website states. “We make this request as loyal citizens who now or in the past earned an income of $1,000,000 per year or more.”

The group includes many big-time Democratic donors such as Gail Furman, trial lawyer Guy Saperstein and Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (pictured). The list remains open to millionaires who want to sign on.

via Millionaires to Obama: Tax us – Yahoo! News.

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November 20, 2010 · 6:00 pm

Gone missing: The country’s conscience, brain and heart | Hal Crowther | Independent Weekly

Excellent article from Hal Crowther in “The Independent Weekly:”

The people have spoken. But what did they say? I wish that President Obama, besieged by conservatives warning him to heed the voice of the people, could summon the impudence to say what I might say, in his place, about the midterm elections of 2010. Maybe this is the way he’d answer his tormentors, if he dared: “When you can explain to me why Americans who have so little join forces against me with those who have way too much, then I might begin to understand what the electorate is saying.”

He would never hear an honest reply. The dishonest one, a mantra on the right, is that all those Americans, rich and poor, share an unshakable belief in the free-market economy—which in the case of blue-collar tea-baggers is the same as an unshakable belief that they will win the lottery. The great Republican resurrection of 2010 makes no sense whatsoever where traditional logic prevails. A cartoon by Dan Wasserman of The Boston Globe shows the shell-shocked donkey and the jubilant elephant sitting at a bar. The donkey says “They voted you back into office out of anger over the mess you created?” and the leering pachyderm replies, “You don’t believe in recycling?”

The midterms make exactly that much sense unless you concede that they mark the most successful manipulation of the gullible by the cynical that this deceitful republic has yet witnessed. Billionaires and “undisclosed” corporate donors poured kings’ ransoms into relentless attack ads against vulnerable Democrats. Right-wing broadcasters circulated myths and lies that would have made Joseph Goebbels blush, and every racist and xenophobic impulse threatening to a nonwhite president was exploited without apology. The secret money served it up, and the logic-impaired tea party irregulars swallowed the poisoned bait with relish. The net result of the vaunted populist rebellion of 2010 was a sharp turn toward corporate feudalism, as the House of Representatives and many state legislatures and governor’s mansions reverted to a rudderless but ruthless Republican Party that has never been less deserving of another chance.

It’s really worth clicking the link, below, and reading the entire article:

More: Gone missing: The country’s conscience, brain and heart | Hal Crowther | Independent Weekly.

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November 20, 2010 · 5:56 pm

Hiding From Reality – NYTimes.com

However you want to define the American dream, there is not much of it that’s left anymore.

Another honest look at America by Bob Herbert in the Times:

Wherever you choose to look — at the economy and jobs, the public schools, the budget deficits, the nonstop warfare overseas — you’ll see a country in sad shape. Standards of living are declining, and American parents increasingly believe that their children will inherit a very bad deal.

We’re in denial about the extent of the rot in the system, and the effort that would be required to turn things around. It will likely take many years, perhaps a decade or more, to get employment back to a level at which one could fairly say the economy is thriving.

Consider this startling information from the Pew Hispanic Center: in the year following the official end of the Great Recession in June 2009, foreign-born workers in the U.S. gained 656,000 jobs while native-born workers lost 1.2 million. But even as the hiring of immigrants picked up during that period, those same workers “experienced a sharp decline in earnings.”

What this shows is not that we should discriminate against foreign-born workers, but that the U.S. needs to develop a full-employment economy that provides jobs for all who want to work at pay that enables the workers and their families to enjoy a decent standard of living. In other words, a resurrection of the American dream.

Right now, nothing close to that is happening.

Link to full article: Hiding From Reality – NYTimes.com.

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Filed under Education, History, Politics, The Economy

November 16, 2010 · 11:02 pm

John Kennedy’s Inaugural Address

Here is an excerpt from JFK’s inaugural address in 1961. Only about 50 years ago….

But it seems much longer ago. So much hope and idealism…

In today’s world, it almost seems quaint…

Where has it gone?

Read it and think: How can we recapture this American Spirit in this cynical and divided age?

So let us begin anew – remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belabouring those problems which divide us.

Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms – and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations.

Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.

Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah – to “undo the heavy burdens -. and to let the oppressed go free.”

And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavour, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.

Now the trumpet summons us again – not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are – but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation” – a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.

Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shank from this responsibility – I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavour will light our country and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

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November 16, 2010 · 10:49 pm

Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin Remarks Cut by PBS | PopEater.com

Why am I not surprised? The media is always either a) afraid or b) controlled by a corporation with a special agenda. Everything is slanted and edited now…

In a taped ceremony of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on Sunday, PBS chopped recipient Tina Fey’s remarks regarding Sarah Palin. Now an executive producer of the broadcast tells the Washington Post the move had nothing to do with politics.

“It was not a political decision,” Peter Kaminsky says. “We had zero problems with anything she said.”

Kaminsky says the 90-minute show ran almost 20 minutes over time. “We took a lot out. We snipped from everyone.”

The specific “snips” Fey’s speech incurred are apt to raise eyebrows, though. Read on.

Tina Fey thanked Sarah Palin for her own comedic success, referencing a recurring, dead-on impression on ‘Saturday Night Live’ during the 2008 election. “I would be a liar and an idiot if I didn’t thank Sarah Palin for helping get me here tonight,” Fey said. “My partial resemblance and her crazy voice are the two luckiest things that ever happened to me.”

Then she forged ahead to more brazenly anti-Palin territory: “Politics aside, the success of Sarah Palin and women like her is good for all women … unless you’re a gay woman who wants to marry your partner of 20 years — whatever. But for most women, the success of conservative women is good for all of us. Unless you believe in evolution. You know, actually, I take it back. The whole thing’s a disaster.”

Those remarks were trimmed significantly, leaving PBS viewers with a tamer, less potentially offensive bit from Fey: “I’m so proud to represent American humor, I am proud to be an American, and I am proud to make my home in the ‘not real’ America. And I am most proud that during trying times, like an orange [terror] alert, a bad economy or a contentious election that we as a nation retain our sense of humor.”

Tina Fey is the third woman to win the Mark Twain Prize since its inception 12 years ago; at 40, she is also the youngest honoree.

via Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin Remarks Cut by PBS | PopEater.com.

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November 15, 2010 · 6:20 pm

Eugene Robinson – Where’s the Democrats’ fighting spirit?

One of the best post-election articles I’ve read….

“Why don’t they fight back?”

That’s the question I’ve been hearing from the Democratic Party’s stunned and dispirited base. For the past month, I’ve been on a book tour that has taken me to Asheville, N.C., Terre Haute, Ind., Austin and elsewhere. Everywhere I go, supporters of President Obama and his agenda ask me why so many Democrats in Washington don’t stand up for what they say they believe.

I confess that I don’t have a good answer. What I can say with confidence, however, is that the White House and Democrats in Congress ignore these grumblings at their peril. Call it polarization, call it conviction, call it whatever you like: These are not wishy-washy times. If you don’t stand for something, you get run over.

We saw this principle in action last week. Anomie among the Democratic base was not the main reason the party suffered what Obama called a “shellacking” in the midterms, but clearly it was a factor. Elements of the party’s traditional coalition – minorities, women, young people – voted in much smaller numbers than they did in 2008. The “enthusiasm gap” turned out to be real, and it had real consequences.

I’ve been hearing frustration at the willingness of Democrats to accommodate a Republican Party that refuses to give an inch. To progressives who may not understand the subtleties of inside-the-Beltway thinking, this looks like surrender.

AND:

The conventional wisdom in Washington is that those who say the lesson from last week’s drubbing is that progressives should get a spine simply “don’t get it.” The explanation given by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and some others – that aside from stubbornly high unemployment, one contributing factor was the Democrats’ failure to explain their program and counter Republican misinformation – is seen by the conventionally wise as delusional.

But I’ve been meeting an awful lot of progressives around the country who share that delusion, if that’s what it is. They despair that their neighbors don’t know that it was George W. Bush who proposed the TARP bailout, not Obama – or that it worked, or that taxpayers are getting their money back. They wonder how health-care reform came to be defined not as a moral issue or a way to slow rising costs, which it is, but as a “big government takeover,” complete with “death panels.” Which it isn’t.

What I’m hearing is frustration, and it’s getting louder. I’m hearing the view that the Obama administration, which has done much good, can do better – by speaking clearly, standing its ground – and, when pushed by bullies, shoving back.

via Eugene Robinson – Where’s the Democrats’ fighting spirit?.

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Filed under Health Care, History, Politics, Social Commentary, The Economy, Uncategorized

November 15, 2010 · 6:14 pm

AMERICAblog News: ‘Who will stand up to the superrich?’

Great blog about Frank Rich’s Sunday New York Times Column. It really help that Rich gets this….

Americablog does this summation better than I, so I encourage you to click the link to the full post:

That’s the title of Frank Rich’s latest column, and it’s the key question, not just of this election cycle, but perhaps of the first half of the new century.

Who will stand up to the superrich? From the columnist who coined the phrase “billionaires’ coup” (my emphasis throughout):

The wealthy Americans we should worry about … are the ones who implicitly won the election — those who take far more from America than they give back. They were not on the ballot, and most of them are not household names. Unlike Whitman and the other defeated self-financing candidates, they are all but certain to cash in on the Nov. 2 results. There’s no one in Washington in either party with the fortitude to try to stop them from grabbing anything that’s not nailed down.

Just a note on that last line, “grabbing anything that’s not nailed down.” What do you call it when absolutely everything on the planet is for sale to the only people left with money? Mission accomplished. Frank Rich again:

The Americans I’m talking about are not just those shadowy anonymous corporate campaign contributors who flooded this campaign. No less triumphant were those individuals at the apex of the economic pyramid — the superrich who have gotten spectacularly richer over the last four decades while their fellow citizens either treaded water or lost ground. The top 1 percent of American earners took in 23.5 percent of the nation’s pretax income in 2007 — up from less than 9 percent in 1976. During the boom years of 2002 to 2007, that top 1 percent’s pretax income increased an extraordinary 10 percent every year. But the boom proved an exclusive affair: in that same period, the median income for non-elderly American households went down and the poverty rate rose.

Good numbers to remember when your “Reagan Democrat” hate-the-hippies uncle mouths off at Thanksgiving. The top-1% folks went from 9% of all pretax income to 23% — your “Reagan revolution,” and his tax dollars, at work.

via AMERICAblog News: ‘Who will stand up to the superrich?’.

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