Akin, Religious Thuggery and Dr. Seuss

A few days in, Akin and the Republican Party in general are probably hoping this issue of "legitimate rape" and a woman's body's ability to fend off her rapist's sperm (where'd that come from?)  blows over - "oh it's all yesterday's news," I can hear them saying.  This will be what the talking heads on the news channels (at least the "Fair and Balanced" one) will be promoting as well.

But Akin's repugnant and unscientific views notwithstanding, the entire issue is a really a clear view into what a key component of the Republican Agenda is - a war on women.  Sharia-like laws enacted to take THEIR interpretation of what Christian beliefs are, and should be, and impose them on everyone else in our secular society.  The fact that Akin and Ryan co-sponsored legislation to accomplish this and that Romney supported it should give any freedom-loving individual pause when considering whether to support them or not.

To be sure, the next stage here will be that Akin's and the other religious radicals will scream that they're being persecuted because others object to THEIR attempted imposition on the rest of Americans.

I don't care if they're the majority or not (I certainly don't believe so) - that's immaterial.  This isn't a 50% + 1  rule of the mob country - this is a country ruled by principles and laws (hence we're a Constitutional Republic NOT a Democracy - something most people seem to have missed in Civics 101) - the first of which is a separation of church and state.  What you believe is your god's will really doesn't matter.  And to try and impose your religious beliefs on others is not just unconstitutional, it's reprehensible.

So take it away Dr Seuss ....  or a reasonable facsimile thereof

Time to overthrow the financial system

General question out there - when in the course of financial affairs the banks violate the basic principles of the agreement with their customers, should the customers refuse to pay the banks? Should the government uphold this action?

This is a real question as it becomes clear that the financial institutions banded together to systematically defraud Hundreds of Trillions of dollars in financial instruments through illegally manipulating the interest rates and terms upon which they are based.

Our cities are going bankrupt.
Our homes are being foreclosed.
We've paid higher than necessary interest rates on all our debt.

And yet, despite all this, banks continue to insist on enforcing the terms of our agreements- interest payments, fines and penalties and other exorbitant measures of financial penalties.

Should we continue to pay? When is enough enough?

I hold that, as of this day, our obligation to abide by the terms of agreements with banks, credit card companies and other usurious institutions is null and void - that through their systematic and PLANNED violation of the law, and common decency, they no longer can look to their debtors to follow the terms of any financial contract.

I further hold that, given the heinous nature of their offenses, that no longer shall fines alone be sufficient to ameliorate their crimes. No, from this day forward I say that We the People DEMAND that the traders, managers and executives that oversaw these and other illegal activities be tried and imprisoned. Since when is it acceptable in society that a man, found guilty of stealing a thousand dollars should be sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, yet one who has stolen Billions of dollars not be charged or tried at all.

This gets to the center of what type of society we want to live in.

I further hold that, if our government does NOT vigorously prosecute these financial criminals, that it is no longer a legitimate government and needs to be replaced IN TOTAL - the individuals, the institutions, the Laws and Regulations, indeed all facets of a government that would NOT hold criminals of this sort publicly accountable for their actions can no longer claim to legitimately govern its people.

A Working Model of American Social Innovation

There's a interesting meme making its way around the internet attributed to Aristotle that has sparked some interesting debate:

I think some ideas are, well, just bad ones.  And that you can see them at face value as such.  Others are more, well, complex or nuanced - often requiring a tweak here or there to get right, or needing to me maintained / updated to address changing times and circumstances.  And some ideas are just good ones to be picked up immediately.  Pure observation tells us that the vast majority of them are in the middle category, and that the advantage of having an open mind is that you can experience them, play with them, and then either drop them as bad ideas, change them to make them better, or adopt as good.


Which gets me to dogmatic orthodoxy - the tune of the day in this country with both the liberal and conservative camps having polarized themselves, and requiring strict adherence to a narrowly defined set of values or beliefs.  Through this there is no ability to try things on, no space for trial and error; imagine having to explain why what you thought might have been a workable idea turned out to be unworkable?  Shear heresy to have undertaken it.


So there must be more than one dimension at work here - for there are plenty of highly educated people on both sides of the aisle, and precious few of them seem to be willing to try something interesting to see what might happen.  Let's just call that something "Willingness to Try" or "Orthodoxy"  If we plot these two attributes on a simple two by two matrix let's see what we get:

Figure One

Here we can see the two by two with four resulting quadrants of social innovation.  Moving counter clockwise from the upper right we have:

• Quadrant I - Innovation - a place where new ideas are entertained and the social environment exists to try them out

• Quadrant II - Stagnation - a place where new ideas are entertained, but the polarized orthodoxies of the ruling class prevents society from testing or employing them

• Quadrant III - Stasis - a place where no new ideas are identified, and the polarized orthodoxies of the ruling class prevents society from testing even those mediocre ideas that surface

• Quadrant IV - Stagnation - no new ideas are entertained, but we'd be willing to try them out if they did (a null set of good ideas making it to the table)  - resulting in overall stagnation

A basic premise I'll employ is that of asymptotic distribution as we approach the extremes of either variable considered.  


With this defining principle in mind, to the basic framework outlined in Figure One above we can now add the identifiable frontiers of innovation

Figure Two

In Figure Two we can see the limits of innovation:

• In Quadrant I we can identify the efficient frontier  - beyond which we're trying out too many new ideas with no guiding principles yielding total Chaos
• In Quadrant II we can see that too high a degree of Political Orthodoxy coupled with a Highly Educated mind leads to Gridlock beyond the workable frontier, as no party can agree on what should be done or when
• In Quadrant III we see the reactionary frontier, to me the scariest of them all, which sees us slipping quickly into the Dark Ages
• And finally, Quadrant IV as we approach a total lack of orthodoxy coupled with an unwillingness to entertain new ideas leads to a Chaotic Dark Age.

Building upon Figure Two we can identify a point where we've attained minimum social efficiency in societal innovation.  In Figure Three I plot a hypothetical minimum social efficiency frontier - to the right of which we're entertaining sufficient new ideas to deliver the social innovation required to adapt to our changing environment, to the left of which we're not. 

Figure Three

Thus, any combination of ideas and political orthodoxy which yields a societal innovation profile between the minimum social efficiency line and the efficient frontier arc is at least a productive situation.  Anything beyond the efficient frontier, or to the left of the minimum social efficiency frontier is not.

All that is left is to plot where various parties on the political spectrum are to see what we have from a leadership standpoint.  This enables us to develop a prognosis for America's ability to adapt to our changing times and emerge from the financial and economic issues we face today successfully.

I've plotted a few of the major actors (and a couple of minor ones) Figure Four below - let's see what we get:

Figure Four

Crap.  We're hosed.  Not a single one of them looks like they're going to work for us.

I guess it's time to move to New Zealand.  Either that or find some middle ground in a new set of players that will actually help this country rather than hinder it.

Affordable Care Act and the Supreme Court - a response to George Will of the Washington Post

This is a verbatim copy of my response to a Washington Post editorial in today's online issue:

Liberals put the squeeze to Justice Roberts


Will's clearly partisan opinion piece misses two central points that somehow elude those enamored in the so-called "libertarian" or conservative sound-bites of this issue.

First - Congress has not "created commerce" - it already exists.  Under current law emergency rooms MUST take all those who present for care, and if they can't pay, the government does.  This makes good sense from a public health stand point (unless you want people dying because they can't pay, or not presenting when they have contagious diseases.), as well as from a civil and social standpoint.

Second - the market for healthcare is a natural one.  No matter how healthy you are, at some point you'll need a doctor.  So to not be financially covered for this impending need, and to ultimately depend on the government for your coverage means you, by refusing insurance, are getting a free ride on the rest of the taxpayers and those who pay for their insurance.

Thus, this isn't a matter of freedom of choice as so called Conservatives would have you think.  This is a matter of you as an individual taking accountability for your life, and your expenses, rather than living on the dole.

I find it fascinating that the Conservatives don't want to understand this - I mean isn't that what they supposedly stand for?  Personal accountability?  But I digress.

If the matter here is whether the Congress has the authority to regulate this industry and require individuals to participate financially, I think it's relatively clear that
1) it is an existing commercial marketplace, and
2) all residents and visitors in the United States participate in it

So therefore the Congress has the Constitutional authority to regulate it.  That much is crystal clear.  And thus the Supreme Court really has no choice to affirm the law on that basis - unless it's truly voting a political agenda rather than ruling on the matter of Law, or attempting to overturn all Commerce Legislation since the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.

A more fundamental question should be asked - is requiring everyone to buy private health insurance an adequate or even desirable way to achieve the required market participation?

I would submit no.  A far better solution would be to eliminate private insurance and institute a Single Payor system.  To be sure we could encourage additional riders or coverage from the private marketplace, but base can be provided far more efficiently, with lower cost, and higher quality for more people with a government run Single Payor system.  Current estimates are that as much as 25% of healthcare expense (thats 25% of nearly 3 Trillion dollars a year) is due to multiple billing relationships from multiple payors.  Eliminating this would save up to $750 BN a year.  Which pays for a lot of coverage.  And reduces the debt to boot.

So George Will is either naively misunderstanding the case in front of us, or pursuing some other partisan agenda - which do you think is going on here?

CIA Unravelled Bomb Plot From Within

Who out there really believes this stuff? By my count the past, oh, dozen "foiled terrorist plots" have consisted of security alphabet soup apparatus brilliantly infiltrating, outwitting, and then neutralizing what in the US are arguably impressionable angry young men by 


first - suggesting they should attack the US, 
second -  showing and giving them the means to attack the US, and 
finally neatly rolling them up with what ever fake bomb, IED, WOMD they've engineered for the occasion. 


If true, then they're batting 1000, and are up against the dumbest and ineffectual enemy we've seen in ages.  Reminds me of Mad Magazine's Spy vs. Spy...

Now comes along the latest coup - "Saudi Intelligence" infiltrate a terrorist cell in Yemen, take control of their super-dooper underwear bomb program and then get outed by the media. All under another alphabet soup guided effort.

Really.

It stretches credulity just a bridge too far.

IMHO, domestic "wins" are increasingly looking like a combination of self serving entrapment schemes, targeted at convincing the American people to 


a) continue the exorbitant funding levels we've grown to for "Homeland Security", and 


b) further the path we're on on eroding our essential liberties in the false search for security from an enemy that increasingly we're having to fabricate ourselves to keep real.

The Saudi / Yemeni underwear bombing incident looks suspiciously to me of misinformation spread after the media knowingly sat on the story for days at intelligence's request, giving them time to create a narrative that not only will sell to the American people (look - once agin our infallible security forces have saved the day) as well as sew the seeds of internal doubt at what ever ineffectual terrorist cells still remain out there (oh my Allah! who amongst us are really double agents???!!!!) If successful the alphabet soup folks will both reinforce their core campaign against the American people, as well as spin the terrorist cells int internally destructive activities for months.

Brilliant.

All I can say is:

Got Rights?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-unraveled-bomb-plot-from-within/2012/05/08/gIQA5tKOBU_story.html

North Carolina passes Defense of Marriage Act

North Carolina is well on the path to establishment of a Christian Theocratic state. It is natural, of course, that as a discriminated upon majority they should do so, to protect their views and rights and ensure their safety from fringe elements.

As the Bible is the Christian majority's playbook, and as the New Testament offers no words of wisdom on just how damned the gays are (other than "love your neighbor as yourself ,"which I guess means that gays are the antichrist in some code I haven't the grace to discern - but I'll believe! as we have been told it is so), we must turn to the Old Testament to understand the rationale behind this event, and the logical course of action the State of North Carolina must now follow.

North Carolina should immediately pass laws requiring:

1) Prohibition of looking upon a woman while she is menstruating. (Leviticus 18)

2) don't used mixed seeds, do not wear two types of fabric at once (Leviticus 19)

3) all who do not respect their parents will be put to death, both of those who adulterer shall be put to death, (Leviticus 20)  (Go Newt Gingrich, bastion of Conservative Morality! - don't be visiting NC anything soon ...

4) All blasphemers shall be put to death. (Leviticus 24)

5) daughters will be burnt alive if they are "whores," (Leviticus 22)

(http://www.conservapedia.com/Leviticus)

And god looked upon his works and was pleased.

Update: The Real Unemployment Statistics, or what the government doesn’t want you to know about the economy

In my blogpost from February -  The Real Unemployment Statistics, or what the government doesn’t want you to know about the economy, I examined how the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has consistently under reported unemployment in the United States for the past 4 - 5 years.  This is an update on the situation based on the latest rates available for April.


The mainstream media continue to report the numbers directly from BLS with little critical thought given to what sits behind the numbers.  They've become complicit with the Big Lie that government is broadcasting to the citizens of the United States - that the economy is on a rebound, and that the unemployment situation is improving.


From the New York Times - U.S. Added Only 115,000 Jobs in April; Rate Is 8.1% - they've begun to look at the mass exodus from the labor pool we've been experiencing, but haven't connected the dots to the underlying figures the government is reporting:


"The unemployment rate, which is based on a separate survey of American households, ticked down to 8.1 percent in April, from 8.2 percent. But the decline was not due to the hiring of more unemployed workers; it was entirely because 342,000 workers dropped out of the labor force.

The share of working-age Americans who are in the labor force, meaning they are either working or actively looking for a job, is now at its lowest level since 1981 — when far fewer women were doing paid work. The share of men taking part in the labor force fell in April to 70 percent, the lowest figure since the Labor Department began collecting these data in 1948."

(emphasis in red mine)

340,000 Americans left the workforce entirely in April - they've given up looking for work because jobs just aren't there.

Keeping the same approach I laid out in my previous blog post, and using BLS data, the seasonal adjusted workforce was calculated to be  154,365,000 in April, down from 154,395,000 in January.  In other words the total workforce SHRUNK by 30,000 people in the past 3 months.  Sort of defies demographics doesn't it?  We've a net growth rate (0.899% according to the CIA) which means with a top line population of about 314 Million (US Census), we're adding about 2,825,000 net new people per year, or 235,000 new workers per month.  And this is using current growth rates - the growth rate 18 years ago was higher.  

This means that, in the 3 month period of February through April since I last commented on unemployment, the US should have added a MINIMUM of 700,000 net new labor participants just to cover basic demographics, with a corresponding number of net new jobs to stay at January's 8.3% level.  This much would have kept us treading water at the same levels,much less recoup the tens of millions of jobs lost since Wall Street's little fiasco in 2008.  And the government reports we LOST 30,000 in workforce participation in the same time period.

So for the numbers

Labor participation dropped from 63.7% to 63.6% from January to April, down from 66.4% in January 2002 (what I used as my baseline in my last blog:

Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate (2002 - 2012)

Calculating the real unemployment rate (once again - baselining workforce participation at 2002 levels and then adding back in the now 6,982,000 people that have given up looking for work), we get a real unemployment rate of 12.1% - fully 4 percentage points higher than what BLS is reporting.

You can see the difference in the graph below:

Until next time – If you’re not pissed off, then you haven’t been paying attention.

Banks robbing the US Treasury, or how the US government is printing money for the Banks

So today's blog is a real short one.

Ever ask yourself why there's a shortage of money to loan in the US?  Or why we don't have any money to invest in basic infrastructure, pay for teachers and schools or a hundred other things that we know we should be investing in but our "fiscally responsible" Republican Congressmen keep pointing out we have no money?

Well here's one reason.  (Thanks to Business Insider for pulling together a comprehensive review of economic issues, this is just a slice of them.)

First of all, after the 2008 crash the Federal reserve decided to drop the Federal Funds Rate (the rate major banks pay the Fed to borrow money to raise cash equivalents on hand) to about zero.  They've held it at the lowest levels ever for three years now, and have signaled the intent to keep it that way for the next 18 - 24 months.   The stated rationale was to put money into the economy to drive loans for investment, to invigorate the economy.

So the federal government essentially is printing trillions of dollars to give to the banks to make loans.

Effective Federal Funds Rate

This has been accompanied by a lagged and modest return of lending (source of data: Federal Reserve bank of Saint Louis) - about a 50% return to pre 2008 levels.

So where is all the money that these banks are borrowing going?

Simple.

To buy US Treasuries.

Do a quick double take.

"Really!!??" you say?

That's right.  The banks are borrowing money at essentially zero percent (OK, 0.25% as of late) to purchase US Treasuries, and pocket the spread (known in the industry as "Coining Money").

Nice work if you can get it.

So what's that worth?

According "Coining Money", from the Business Insider, Banks made $211 Billion dollars in the first six months of last year using this scheme.

Nice.

Annualize this and you have a $420 Billion annual subsidy from you, the US taxpayer, to the major US banks.

And still they try to sock you with overcharge fees and monthly ATM access fees.

$420 Billion.

How many schools would that build?

How many crumbling bridges would that replace?

So that's it for today.

Once again - If you're not pissed off then you really haven't been paying attention.

Insurance Rebates total $1.3 Billion this summer

Today the Washington Post reported on a significant milestone in the Accountable Care Act:

Insurance rebates totalling $1.3 billion could be on the way this summer, study says

Almost word for word a direct quote from a Kaiser Family Foundation release - Insurer Rebates under the Medical Loss Ratio: 2012 Estimates, what little "value add" the Post brought to the news was a quote from Robert Laszewski, "a health-care industry consultant and former insurance executive":

" .. rather than sacrificing profits, many insurers have cut administrative costs in ways that could ultimately be passed on to customers.

Perhaps most importantly, he said, the rule does not address the main driver of insurance premiums: Health-care costs continue to grow faster than wages and the rest of the economy.

“This rule doesn’t make health insurance any more affordable,” he said.

Mr. Laszewski's comments serve to obfuscate the intent of the rule by pointing at other issues that are not material to the matter at hand here. I'm disappointed in the Post for giving him a platform to distract people from the real issues that this rule attempts to address.  
 
Yes, healthcare trend is the major issue in the industry. Healthcare reform has many approaches to address trend, ranging from ACOs to Health Records, all designed to both improve the quality of care the average american receives, as well as reduce the cost of that care. 
 
However this rule doesn't attempt to address that issue - it's designed to ensure that when you buy a product, you're getting value for it. 

It's somewhat telling that the industry standard term for the percent of your premium dollar spent on delivering benefits to you is called the Medical LOSS ratio. In case you missed it this is the percent of the money you pay an insurance company that you actually will get back in the form of healthcare. Everything else goes to marketing, sales, administration and, yes PROFITS. 
 
The industry is complaining that they need to spend 80% of the monies YOU pay them to ensure you have access to quality care when you need it on YOU. In California the regulators define benefits designs as "illusory" if MLRs fall below a certain level, and will require plans to change or remove from market the plan. 
 
One state that has struggled with this is Texas, where many plans are down around 50 - 60% MLR. Interestingly their legislature recently shifted the market transition dates for this minimum MLR process. Their rationale? Some insurance companies would struggle in compliance by the target dates, and would have to withdraw from the state, leading to fewer options for consumers. 

Really. 

I have to laugh at this self-serving rationale. If this were the food industry this would be the equivalence of saying too many companies struggle with keeping e coli out of their product, so hey, consumer, in the interests of giving you diversity of choice, we're going to keep products on the market that make you sick or kill you. The irony is staggering. So the state of Texas is going to continue to allow insurance companies to essentially steal money from consumers because they can't figure out how not to steal from them? Give me some of that business. It's no surprise that if you look at the state breakdown of anticipated payments, Texas accounts for more than 25% of all anticipated paybacks. 
 
So let's not confuse different regulations striving for different outcomes. Focusing on the efficiency of the Insurance process is an important step in driving both accountability to insurers, as well as the efficiency of your buying power. It's good consumer protection. Attempting to distract the public from this outcome is both disingenuous as well as self serving. The Post should understand this, Mr.Laszewski certainly does

The $50 Lesson

There's a new meme stalking the internet - an edgy story about how good old Republican values trump New Deal values:


The $50 Lesson

Recently, while I was working in the flower beds in the front yard, my neighbors stopped to chat as they returned home from walking their dog.

During our friendly conversation, I asked their 12 year old daughter what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day.

Both of her parents - liberal Democrats - were standing there, so I asked her, "If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?"

She replied, "I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people."

Her parents beamed with pride!

"Wow...what a worthy goal!" I said. "But you don't have to wait until you're President to do that!" I told her.

"What do you mean?" she replied.

So I told her, "You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and trim my hedge, and I'll pay you $50. Then you can go over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house."

She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?"

I said, "Welcome to the Republican Party."

Her parents aren't speaking to me.


And the author leaves it there, smugly letting the world know that, unlike these pie in the sky socialist liberals, good old Puritan ethics and Republican "work for your own living, I don't owe you anything" ethics rule...


Well ..  As Paul Harvey used to say "And Now for the Rest of the Story"

...

Well the little girl took me up on my offer, and went to get the homeless guy over at the supermarket. She was so excited at the prospect of helping out the homeless she could barely wait.

She returned 20 minutes later with not one, but 5 men in tow - you see with what the bank foreclosures and jobs losses caused by the Banks excesses and government bailouts of big companies to the tune of trillions of dollars, they had not only lost their homes, but their jobs as much of our local economy had turned to dust.

The five men immediately set to work, and 15 minutes later, their work completed, thanked me for my $50. It was late and the day and they disappeared to where ever it is homeless people disappear to at night.  You know, as long as it's not around me, I don't much mind it.

Well, do you believe it, the very next day they showed up with the little girl again asking for more work - you see I was the first person who had offered them a job in weeks, turns out they'd been looking,  and they were eager to do more.

I had to turn them away, but suggested they check with my neighbors to see if they needed some help.

I watched them the rest of the day looking for good honest work up and down the block. Between the 5 of them they found one other homeowner that needed help who paid them $25 (that's $5 apiece!)  to clear out her back yard of a pile of rubble, mend her aged fence and paint it, and mow her front lawn.

At the end of the day the little girl came back to me and asked:

"Where are the jobs for these homeless men who are so ready and able to work?"

I told her that it was a matter of supply and demand, that she'd learn about these things when she got older.

She looked at me with her big eyes and said

"Thanks, I knew I couldn't be a Republican - your ideas don't solve real people's problems," and went home to her Liberal Democratic parents.

The moral of the story is that it's easy to make judgements and stereotype people from the comfort of your lounge chair after a day's hard work you have as a result of the good college education you could afford because your parents had money and access, but it's hard work, taking really compassionate people who are willing to look beyond kitschy sayings and simplistic pablum and employ compassion, to see how we can solve these things.

And don't bring my daughter into this - they actually know better.  I know.  I raised them to care about their fellow man.

Law for the Protection of American Way of Life and American Honor

Based on the anti-immigration trends we've seen in Arizona, Georgia, Alabama etc, the below represents the first bit of legislation I anticipate coming out of a Republican controlled Congress next year:

                One Hundred Twelfth Congress

of the

United States of America

AT THE FIRST SESSION

Begun and held at the City of Washington on Wednesday, the fifth day of January, two thousand and thirteen

House Resolution 1, introduced by Eric A. Crawford, R, Arizona

Law for the Protection of American Way of Life and American Honor


February 22, 2013

Thoroughly convinced by the knowledge that the purity of American blood is essential for the further existence of the American people and animated by the inflexible will to safe-guard the American nation for the entire future, the Congress of the United States has resolved upon the following law, which is promulgated herewith:

SECTION 1

1. Marriages between Foreign Nationals and nationals of American birth and blood are forbidden. Marriages concluded in defiance of this law are void, even if, for the purpose of evading this law, they are concluded abroad.

2. Proceedings for annulment may be initiated only by the Attorney General of the United States.

SECTION 2

Relations outside marriage between Foreign Nationals and nationals for American or kindred blood are forbidden.

SECTION 3

Foreign Nationals will not be permitted to employ female nationals of American or kindred blood in their households.

SECTION 4

1. Foreign Nationals are forbidden to hoist the American and national flag and to present the colors of the United States.
2. On the other hand they are permitted to present their own, foreign colors. The exercise of this authority is protected by the
State.

SECTION 5

1. A person who acts contrary to the prohibition of section 1 will be punished with hard labor.
2. A person who acts contrary to the prohibition of section 2 will be punished with imprisonment or with hard labor.
3. A person who acts contrary to the provisions of section 3 or 4 will be punished with imprisonment up to a year and with a fine or with one of these penalties.

SECTION 6

The Secretary of the Interior in agreement with the Secretary of Homeland Security will issue the legal and administrative regulations, which are required for the implementation and supplementation of this law.

SECTION 7

The law will become effective on the day after the promulgation, section 3 however only on 1 January 2014.

Class Warfare at its Ugliest

From  Class Warfare: Eric Cantor Reveals Republican Plan To Tax The Poor And Middle Class (VIDEO)

" Despite their pledge to Grover Norquist to never again raise taxes, Republicans have decided that their promise only applies to the wealthy and corporations. During a breakfast event on Thursday, Eric Cantor suggested to ABC’s Jon Karl that Republicans intend to punish the poor and middle class even more by squeezing more income taxes out of them so they can pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.

CANTOR: We also know that over 45 percent of the people in this country don’t pay income taxes at all, and we have to question whether that’s fair. And should we broaden the base in a way that we can lower the rates for everybody that pays taxes.

KARL: Just wondering, what do you do about that? Are you saying we need to have a tax increase on the 45 percent who right now pay no federal income tax?

CANTOR: I’m saying that, just in a macro way of looking at it, you’ve got to discuss that issue. How do you deal with a shrinking pie and number of people and entities that support the operations of government, and how do you go about continuing to milk them more, if that’s what some want to do, but preserve their ability to provide the growth engine? I’ve never believed that you go raise taxes on those that have been successful that are paying in, taking away from them, so that you just hand out and give to someone else. "

Cantor Shows Support For Raising Taxes On The Poorest Americans

Wow.  


Joseph Stigliz got it right in Globalism and its Discontents (hard to argue with a Nobel Prize Winner now) - We've spent the past 40 to 50 years engineering the greatest redistribution of wealth in history, from the working and middle classes to the rich.  And now that they're safely in the clouds with all their wealth and power, it's time to pull the ladder up so no one can follow.


Hence, with wealth and income inequality at its greatest since the Gilded Age, and the relatively few (albeit millions of them, but out of a base of 310 millions the numbers are staggering) safely secured against the financial and economic turbulence their policies and actions have created, it is now time to go for the end game and recreate feudalism in the land.


It's not just enraging, it's pathetic.  These so called patriots have created a Welfare Capitalist State (remember "too big to fail?") where banks and major corporations are bailed out to the tune of Trillions of Dollars, yet the displaced workers are now asked to pay for these so called Captains' of Enterprise mistakes once again.


This is class warfare at its ugliest.  Not the so-called class warfare the Republicans accuse the Democrats of when they propose additional taxes on the rich, this is real class warfare where the incredibly privileged have the unmitigated gall to accuse those from whom they've appropriated the wealth and potential of the land of being shirkers.


My only question is when will the sheep look up, and the barricades and Madam Guillotine return to the streets.  Those in power rarely relinquish their ill gotten gains peacefully.

Science, Faith and Public Opinion at work in America

The New York Times published an article today: 

Many Link Weather Extremes to Climate Change.  

Take a look see before going further ...


Wow. So much contained in one article. So a few comments:

1st - This shows how gullible Americans really are. They should know as the Oil and Gas companies have shown us, that there is no such thing as global warming. No no, doesn't exist. 

Therefore extreme weather has only one logical explanation. 

Wrath of God. 


Yes, if you've experienced extreme weather it's because God is judging you as worthy of excoriation and a plague. You better mend your ways or this will get worse for you. Not me, 'cause I'm god fearing and they won't touch me like that... (Waiting for the earthquake now)



2nd - It's great that, like with other matters of national and scientific importance we're relying on public opinion polls to determine facts. 


This is what makes Creationism a guiding force in Tennessee, and Evolution the guiding principle in California, New York, and, well, pretty much everywhere where there are educated human beings. 


Local scientific truths determined by the meandering and mostly uninformed belief systems of the teaming masses is what drives the universe. 

That's why in Indiana, where a State Legislator tried to declare pi equal to three in 1897, wagon wheels momentarily turned triangular, loosing their nice and useful roundness much to the consternations of merchants trying to get their products to market.

(A modern day attempt at the same effect)

Lastly - I'm glad to see the Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" principles are alive and well in the area of real science here in the US. 


It's got to be a far more interesting world where public opinion can determine scientific fact, and define the behavior of everything around us. 


All you need is a bazillion dollars to throw at issues like the Koch brothers to sway public opinion and you can redefine the basic physics of the universe. 


Now when will we get people to believe in FTL travel so we can get the hell away from them?


And if that wasn't enough for one day, a friend of mine shared this video clip of Arizona state Senator Sylvia Allen (R) voicing her support for opening up uranium mining in the state. Sen Allen responds to statements by environmentalists by assuring them that the "Earth is 6,000 years old..." and you have nothing to worry ...

Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen (R) says Earth is 6,000 years old.

I'll have to put Arizona on my list of theologically inspired alternative realities out there. 


I'm sure the dinosaur tracks my daughters and I followed in the desert outside Tuba city were put there, what, 5,500 years ago and changed to solid rock in a "poof" of god's miracles,  Oh, and the petrified forest we meandered through on a warm April afternoon we created out of, well, nothing, 3,500 years ago and turned to rock by an evil witch.  And the Grand Canyon in all its glory was manufactured by God in place on day three, 6,000 years ago:


Genesis



" ⁹ And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. "

Here's to parallel Universes existing on this self same plane right next door.

And you never knew!