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Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
Norwegian Royal Guard Military Tattoo
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2004 Norwegian Royal Guard Military Tattoo – his Majesty King Harald V of Norway’s guard band and drill team – on ice.
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Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
To the Republicans: Trickle This!
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[From Salon.com - cartoons added]
Wednesday, Jul 6, 2011 07:45 ET
The final nail in the supply side coffin
Broken recovery: Taxes are low and corporate profits are high, but nothing is trickling down to the American worker
The theory of supply-side economics tells us that if you cut taxes on rich people and corporations, the newly liberated moguls and businessmen will take their windfall and invest it, creating jobs and accelerating the rate of economic growth. The benefits of a light hand on the upper class, therefore, will “trickle down” to the working man and woman.
Ever since Ronald Reagan first attempted to make supply-side economics a reality and proceeded to inaugurate an era of persistent government deficits and growing income inequality, it has become harder and harder to make the trickle-down argument with a straight face. But we’ve never seen anything quite like the disaster that’s playing out right now.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that corporate profits are looking quite strong for the second quarter of 2011. Even the Journal can’t sugarcoat the basic facts:
While the U.S. economy staggers through one of its slowest recoveries since the Great Depression, American companies are poised to report strong earnings for the second quarter – exposing a dichotomy between corporate performance and the overall health of the economy.
But that’s just the tip of the nightmare. A newly released study from the Center of Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, “The ‘Jobless and Wageless’ Recovery From the Great Recession of 2007- 2009,” lays out some extraordinary statistics. (Hat tip: The Curious Capitalist.)
In the first quarter of 2011, aggregate U.S. GDP – the total value of all the goods and services produced in the United States – was higher than the peak reached before the recession began in 2007. During the six quarters since the recession technically ended in the second quarter of 2009, real national income in the U.S. increased by $528 billion. But the vast majority of that income was captured as profit by corporations that failed to pass on their happy fortunes to their workers.
Over this six quarter period, corporate profits captured 88% of the growth in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than 1% of the growth in real national income. The extraordinarily high share of national income (88%) received by corporate profits was by far the highest in the past five recoveries from national recessions … In the first six quarters of recovery from the 1990-91 recession, corporate profits experienced no growth whatsoever, and they generated on average only 30 per cent of national income growth during the recoveries from the 1981-82 and 1973-75 recessions.
What makes this “recovery” so different? Perhaps the simplest answer is that labor has been broken as a force that can put pressure on management, so there’s little incentive for employers to turn profits into wage hikes or new jobs. Instead, employers are squeezing more out of the workers that they’ve got, and investing in equipment upgrades and new technology instead of human assets – labor productivity has risen sharply since the end of the recession.
Globalization also plays a potent role – and not just as a source of cheap labor to undermine the bargaining power of American workers. The Journal notes that many companies “are benefiting from demand from emerging markets, where they are deriving an increasing share of their sales.” Job creation is probably following the sources of new demand. If the Chinese and Brazilians and Indians are the ones buying American goods and services, then it makes sense to staff up overseas. But with American consumers still shellshocked by the economic crash and dutifully obsessed with paying down their debts while trying to hold on to their homes, domestic demand is hardly a force to be catered to.
Wages are moribund, unemployment is stuck at 9 percent, and the corporate bottom line is doing just fine. You could be excused for thinking that if ever there was time to put the stake through supply-side economics, it would be now. Wall Street and big corporations are doing just fine, but absolutely nothing is trickling down. And yet Republicans are still pushing the same old song and dance, passionately holding the entire creditworthiness of the United States hostage in return for even lower taxes on corporations, adamantly refusing to countenance even the slightest revenue increase to help cushion the hard times for the Americans who are getting a raw deal out of the current recovery.
Democrats come in for their share of the blame, too. The worst economic recovery for American workers in history has happened on Obama’s watch, and he appears remarkably oblivious to it. He may live to regret this oversight.
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Thursday, July 7, 2011
GOP Pushes for Global Financial Meltdown as Debt Ceiling Deadline Looms: A No-Brainer Deal & Stultifying Hypocrisy
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The Mother of All No-Brainers
by DAVID BROOKS • July 4, 2011
Op-Ed Columnist
The Republicans have changed American politics since they took control of the House of Representatives. They have put spending restraint and debt reduction at the top of the national agenda. They have sparked a discussion on entitlement reform. They have turned a bill to raise the debt limit into an opportunity to put the U.S. on a stable fiscal course.
Republican leaders have also proved to be effective negotiators. They have been tough and inflexible and forced the Democrats to come to them. The Democrats have agreed to tie budget cuts to the debt ceiling bill. They have agreed not to raise tax rates. They have agreed to a roughly 3-to-1 rate of spending cuts to revenue increases, an astonishing concession.
Moreover, many important Democrats are open to a truly large budget deal. President Obama has a strong incentive to reach a deal so he can campaign in 2012 as a moderate. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, has talked about supporting a debt reduction measure of $3 trillion or even $4 trillion if the Republicans meet him part way. There are Democrats in the White House and elsewhere who would be willing to accept Medicare cuts if the Republicans would be willing to increase revenues.
If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred million dollars of revenue increases.
A normal Republican Party would seize the opportunity to put a long-term limit on the growth of government. It would seize the opportunity to put the country on a sound fiscal footing. It would seize the opportunity to do these things without putting any real crimp in economic growth.
The party is not being asked to raise marginal tax rates in a way that might pervert incentives. On the contrary, Republicans are merely being asked to close loopholes and eliminate tax expenditures that are themselves distortionary.
This, as I say, is the mother of all no-brainers.
But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.
The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no.
The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. A thousand impartial experts may tell them that a default on the debt would have calamitous effects, far worse than raising tax revenues a bit. But the members of this movement refuse to believe it.
The members of this movement have no sense of moral decency. A nation makes a sacred pledge to pay the money back when it borrows money. But the members of this movement talk blandly of default and are willing to stain their nation’s honor.
The members of this movement have no economic theory worthy of the name. Economists have identified many factors that contribute to economic growth, ranging from the productivity of the work force to the share of private savings that is available for private investment. Tax levels matter, but they are far from the only or even the most important factor.
But to members of this movement, tax levels are everything. Members of this tendency have taken a small piece of economic policy and turned it into a sacred fixation. They are willing to cut education and research to preserve tax expenditures. Manufacturing employment is cratering even as output rises, but members of this movement somehow believe such problems can be addressed so long as they continue to worship their idol.
Over the past week, Democrats have stopped making concessions. They are coming to the conclusion that if the Republicans are fanatics then they better be fanatics, too.
The struggles of the next few weeks are about what sort of party the G.O.P. is — a normal conservative party or an odd protest movement that has separated itself from normal governance, the normal rules of evidence and the ancient habits of our nation.
If the debt ceiling talks fail, independents voters will see that Democrats were willing to compromise but Republicans were not. If responsible Republicans don’t take control, independents will conclude that Republican fanaticism caused this default. They will conclude that Republicans are not fit to govern.
And they will be right.
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During Bush Presidency, Current GOP Leaders Voted 19 Times To Increase Debt Limit By $4 Trillion
By Travis Waldron on Apr 14, 2011 at 11:49 am
After pushing the government to brink of shutdown last week, Republican Congressional leaders are now preparing to push America to the edge of default by refusing to increase the nation’s debt limit without first getting Democrats to concede to large spending cuts.
But while the four Republicans in Congressional leadership positions are attempting to hold the increase hostage now, they combined to vote for a debt limit increase 19 times during the presidency of George W. Bush. In doing so, they increased the debt limit by nearly $4 trillion.
At the beginning of the Bush presidency, the United States debt limit was $5.95 trillion. Despite promises that he would pay off the debt in 10 years, Bush increased the debt to $9.815 trillion by the end of his term, with plenty of help from the four Republicans currently holding Congressional leadership positions: Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl. ThinkProgress compiled a breakdown of the five debt limit increases that took place during the Bush presidency and how the four Republican leaders voted:
June 2002: Congress approves a $450 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $6.4 trillion. McConnell, Boehner, and Cantor vote “yea”, Kyl votes “nay.”
May 2003: Congress approves a $900 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $7.384 trillion. All four approve.
November 2004: Congress approves an $800 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $8.1 trillion. All four approve.
March 2006: Congress approves a $781 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $8.965 trillion. All four approve.
September 2007: Congress approves an $850 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $9.815 trillion. All four approve.
Database searches revealed no demands from the four legislators that debt increases come accompanied by drastic spending cuts, as there are now. In fact, the May 2003 debt limit increase passed the Senate the same day as the $350 billion Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
When Bush was in office, the current Republican leaders viewed increasing the debt limit as vital to keeping America’s economy running. But with Obama in the White House, it’s nothing more than a political pawn.
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Who Said This?
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“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. […] Is there no other way the world may live?”
Dwight D. Eisenhower - 34th President of the United States (1890-1969)
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Saturday, July 2, 2011
The Ohio Death Cocktail: Drunks with Guns – Stirred or Shaken
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Ohio governor signs law allowing guns in bars
June 30, 2011
COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich on Thursday signed into law a bill that allows gun owners in the state to carry concealed weapons into bars and other places where alcohol is served.
Sounds like a great plan – drunks with guns.
The measure, which was forwarded to Kasich on June 22 by the Ohio General Assembly, was signed on Thursday afternoon. Kasich is scheduled to sign the Ohio budget later Thursday.
Businesses can ban concealed weapons on their premises for safety reasons if the want to and some, like the Cincinnati Bengals football team, have indicated they will continue to bar gun owners from bringing firearms into the stadium.
Good for the Bengals for setting a sane example!
The law also prohibits gun owners from consuming alcohol or being under the influence of alcohol or drugs when they carry their weapons into bars.
Yeah – that’ll work. So anyone walking into an Ohio bar will be frisked for weapons and if any are found – no drinking for you! Same with already intoxicated people walking into a bar as bar owners frisk already drunken people for weapons. Anyone care to try frisking a drunk for weapons?
The new laws allow residents to carry concealed handguns into licensed establishments in the state, including shopping malls and sporting venues.
Oh great – more to worry about as your kids trip on off to the mall or go to a ballgame with its ubiquitous, drunken fans.
The new law also allows a person with a concealed carry license to transport a loaded handgun in a motor vehicle without securing it in a holster, case, bag or box -- and allows them to remove a handgun from a secure location.
Sounds like road rage on steroids. Oh, and better not stop short.
Opponents of the laws had said that mixing guns and alcohol would endanger public safety.
Well gee – ya’ think?!
Supports argued that the laws bring Ohio into line with other states that have concealed carry rules.
Mommy, mommy – all my friends have guns.
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> Let’s hear it for the Buckeye libertarian legislators! <
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(Writing by David Bailey and Greg McCune – comments in blue – mine.)
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