Obama Not the 1st President to Miss Memorial Day at Arlington

Radio and TV talker Glenn Beck (on May 25) said, "Obama is skipping out on a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington Cemetery because he'll be in Chicago on vacation." On his show, Beck incorrectly asserted that the president "has decided not to honor our troops on Memorial Day."

Beck said, "Maybe this has happened before. I don't recall it."

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20006346-503544.html

Only a cretin of the highest order would be stupid enough to say things so patently false and easily debunked. And if he's not this stupid, then he is clearly and most certainly one of the most reprehensible creatures ever to use mass media to make himself wealthy while knowingly misleading those who are all too willing to be misled.

It's an unforgivable smear on the gravity, dignity, and importance of this day of somber remembrance. I couldn't let it pass.

How I Solved the Debt Crisis

How I got the U.S. to an acceptable debt level at http://crfb.org/stabilizethedebt/. My selections are in bold below.


Iraq and Afghanistan

Reduce Troops to 60,000 by 2015
-$350B
Reduce Troops to 30,000 by 2013
-$740B
Maintain Current Funding Levels
$0

2001/2003 Tax Cuts
Renew All the Tax Cuts
$3,280B
Renew the Tax Cuts on Income Below $250k/200k
$2,590B
Reduce Lower Rate Cuts by Half and Let Upper-Income Cuts Expire
$2,060B
Allow All the Tax Cuts, Except for AMT Patches, to Expire
$480

Discretionary Spending Growth
Grow Regular Discretionary Spending with GDP
$1,290B
Adopt the Discretionary Spending Growth Rates in the President's Budget
$680B
Grow Regular Discretionary Spending with Inflation
$0

Defense, Diplomacy & Security
Enact Administration's Proposed Weapon System Cuts
-$30B

Foreign Aid
Cut Foreign Economic Aid in Half
-$110B
Increase Foreign Economic Aid by 50%
$110B

Veterans' Benefits
Reduce Veteran's Income Security Benefits
-$50B
Expand Veteran's Income Security Benefits
$30B

Cancel Missile Defense System
-$50B
Reduce Spending on Ship Building
-$50B
Increase Homeland Security Spending
$50B

Troop Levels
Increase Number of troops by 46,000
$70B
Reverse "Grow the Army" Initiative
-$90B

Domestic Social & Economic Spending
Cancel TARP and Rescind Unused ARRA Funds
-$350B
Enact New Jobs Bill
$210B

Food Stamps
Gradually Reduce Benefits to 2008 Levels
-$100B
Index Current (Post-Stimulus) Benefits to GDP
$140B

Freeze Average Unemployment Benefits at 2009 Levels
-$50B
Cut Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) Program
-$50B
Cut Federal Funding of K-12 Education by 25%
-$60
Eliminate the New Markets Tax Credit
-$40B
Cut School Breakfast Programs
-$30
Double Funding on Adoption and Foster Care
$70B
Increase Funding for the Education of Disadvantaged and Disabled Children
$290

Social Security
Raise the Normal Retirement Age to 68
-$110B

Slow Initial Benefit Growth
Gradually Reduce Scheduled Benefits (by 30% in 2080)
-$100B
Progressively Reduce Benefits, Protecting Low Earners
-$80B
Progressively Reduce Benefits, Protecting Low and Medium Earners
-$60B
Use An Alternate Measure of Inflation for COLAs
-$100B
Reduce Spousal Benefits from 50% to 33%
-$20B
Increase Years Used to Calculate Benefits
-$40B
Include all New State and Local Workers
-$80B
Institute a Minimum Benefit
$130B

Health Care
Modify Health Care Reform Law

Expand Coverage to an Additional 5 Million People
$130B
Reduce Insurance Subsidies by 20%
-$160B
Repeal Entire Legislation
$160B
Repeal Legislation, but Keep Medicare/Medicaid Cuts
-$260B
Increase Cost-Sharing for Medicare
-$100B
Raise Medicare Premiums to 35% of Costs
-$140B
Reduce Spending on Graduate Medical Education
-$20B
Enact Medical Malpractice Reform
-$50B
Increase the Medicare Retirement Age to 67
-$80B
Replace Traditional Medicare with Insurance Vouchers
-$120B
Modify Federal Medicaid Funding to States

Reduce Funding Removing Floor on Matches
-$130B
Increase Average Matches from 57% to 60%
$140B


Other Spending
Eliminate Certain Outdated Programs
-$40B
Reduce Federal Highway Funding
-$70B
Reduce or Eliminate Certain Transportation Programs
-$20B
Cut Federal Workforce by Five Percent
-$130B
Cancel NASA Missions to the Moon and Mars
-$40B
Reduce Farm Subsidies
-$80B
Expand Spending on Federal Research & Development
$100
Cut Earmarks in Half
-$80B
Increase Mass Transit Funding
$60B


Revenues
Increase User Fees Across the Board
-$40B
Sell Certain Government Assets
-$70B
Impose Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee
-$80B
Reform International Tax System
-$120B
Enact Carbon Tax or Cap-and-Trade
-$330B
Increase Gas Tax by 10 Cents per Gallon
-$80B
Enact Five percent VAT With Partial Rebate
-$630B
Gradually Increase Dependent Exemption by $3,500
$190B
Impose Surtax on Income above $1 million
-$190B
Gradually Increase Payroll Tax by One Percentage Point
-$130B

Raise Social Security Payroll Tax Cap
Raise Cap to Cover 90% of Earnings
-$420B
Institute Two Percent Surtax on Earnings Above Cap
-$190B
Reduce Corporate Tax Rate from 35% to 30%
$390B
Index Tax Code to Alternate Measure of Inflation
-$80B
Improve Tax Collection (Reduce Tax Gap)
-$20B

Tax Expenditures
Convert Mortgage Interest Deduction to a 20% Credit
-$190B
Limit Itemized Deductions for High-Earners
-$250B
Curtail State and Local Tax Deduction
-$470B
Eliminate Life Insurance Tax Benefits
-$220B
Eliminate Subsidies for Biofuels
-$110B
Make Research & Development Tax Credit Permanent
$80B
Extend $400/person Making Work Pay Credit
-$400B

Tax Credits for Children and Families
Cut the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)
-$70B
Expand the EITC and Child Tax Credit
$90B
Extend "American Opportunity" College Tax Credit
$60B

Tax Treatment of Employer Sponsored Health Insurance
Begin Excise Tax on High-Cost Plans in 2013 Instead of 2018
-$110B
Repeal Excise Tax on High-Cost Plans
$10B
Replace Employer Health Care Exclusion with a Flat Credit (In Place of Excise Tax)
-$340B

Reinventing financial regulation

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2010/05/20/GR2010052004992.html


I'm glad to see a return to some degree of sanity.

How many more times will we fall for the lies and deceptions of so-called free markets and deregulation before we learn the lesson?

Eff the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act and all the harm it and Randians everywhere have done to our great country, our economy and our once great society. How much more proof do we ordinary citizens need that the people with money and power can never, ever, ever be trusted to do what's right for anyone but themselves?

Markets only work for everyone when there are some rules that enforce fairness and honesty.

The Magnetar Trade: How One Hedge Fund Helped Keep the Bubble Going (Single Page) from ProPublica.com

Worth the read for anyone who wants to understand what happened to cause the economic crash from inside the complex world of collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, and individual bankers, CDO managers, and hedge funds.

http://www.propublica.org/feature/all-the-magnetar-trade-how-one-hedge-fund-helped-keep-the-housing-bubble

If you prefer listening to the story, you can stream it or download the an MP3 file from http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/405/inside-job

Wake up GOP and Conservatives and Quit Being Idiot Tea-Baggers!

http://www.gallup.com/poll/127181/Tea-Partiers-Fairly-Mainstream-Demographics.aspx#1

Don't let the title fool you.

Only 28% of U.S. adults admit to being tea-baggers. 26% oppose. 38% neither support nor oppose. 8% don't give a f***.

49% of tea-baggers identify themselves as GOP compared to.....
...... a whopping 28% of all U.S. adults who are willing to admit that they are Republicans.

72% of all U.S. adults are either Independent (40%) or Dems (32%).

Here's a shocker....
70% of tea-baggers say they are Conservative but only 40% of U.S. adults say so. 59% of U.S. adults are either Moderate (38%) or Liberal (21%).

And look, another huge surprise....
19% of tea-baggers earn less than $30K a year
...... 55% make more than $50K

More surprises....
62% of Republicans and 63% of Conservatives have a favorable opinion of tea-baggers, but......
WHOOPS!
More National Adults overall(40% v 37%), Independents (41% v 37%), and Moderates (51% v 24%) have an UNFAVORABLE opinion compared to a favorable one.

Wake up you Republicans and Conservatives before you disappear completely into the cultural oblivion and societal garbage heap which is most certainly the final destination of Queen Tea Bag and her moronic movement.

Bill Maher's New Rule: You can't use the statement "there will be no cooperation for the rest of the year"

New Rule: You can't use the statement "there will be no cooperation for the rest of the year" as a threat if there was no cooperation in the first half of the year. Here's a word the president should take out of his teleprompter: bipartisanship. People only care about that in theory, not in practice. The best thing that's happened this year is when President Obama finally realized this and said, "Kiss my black ass, we're going it alone, George W. Bush style."

Read his full blog post here.

American Pie....That You Shouldn't Want

Don't get me wrong. I think the American religion of capitalism has some merit. I've done ok by it, I guess. But it also seems to me to be fraught with failure; failure that is rigged into it for most of us no matter what we want to believe about unfettered and free capitalist markets that create opportunities for any of us to be rich.

Believe in tinkle-down economics and corporate benevolence if you like, but the reality is that the vast majority of us are only so much chattel in the execution of an economic model that sees people as expendable resources. That's not rain splashing on top of your head. More on that in a minute.

How else can our indifference and downright hatred and contempt from some segments of our population be explained? I'm no theologian, but I don't think it can be explained as part of any mainstream religion.

No, IMHO, it comes from what I consider to be a terribly misguided resurgence of Randian capitalism and what seems to be a built-in contempt in conservatism for anyone not meeting their litmus tests and the definition of "success" in a capitalist sense. It all seems to me to breed an ugly culture of greed and amorality that spawns idiots like Beck, Limbaugh, and Palin who preach their sermons of lies and hatred. They make tons of money and grow their personal wealth by duping certain people in this country into thinking that things like universal health care and financial market regulations are bad ideas. In simple terms, their religion of capitalism puts greater value on money and individual wealth than it does on human life or protecting the rest of us from undue investment risks taken on by people who get all the reward and bear none of that risk.

(BTW and before anyone takes offense at my penchant for using the word 'dupe', it means to deceive. It has nothing to do with intelligence. Even the brightest people in the world can be deceived.)

Unfettered capitalism also dupes Americans into believing that we can buy our way into wealth and happiness. Who was it, after all, that made credit cheap and told us the only way to be happy was to stuff our lives with more and more stuff!?! Probably wasn't the liberal left.

Unfettered capitalism also seems to create a sense of entitlement among American consumers. Strange use of that term, entitlement, I know. What I mean is that we have allowed ourselves to be deceived - duped - into believing that we are entitled to cheaper and cheaper consumer goods so we can stuff our lives with more and more stuff without one wit of consideration for how, where, and by whom those goods are produced, distributed, and delivered to market. It was this video that got me thinking about that today.

The high priests of this capitalist religion - the "captains of industry", "Wall Streeters", and, yes, neo-Randians, so-called fiscal conservatives, even Libertarians - are more than happy to supposedly "serve the market demands", right? I mean, why not? If that's what Americans want then, dammit, we're Americans and that's what we're going to have. All that's being done is the servicing of the demands of the marketplace, right? If that's what people want, that's what we'll give them. What's wrong with that?

Fair enough. I'm ok with that....to a point.

If cheaper and cheaper is the siren song to wealth and happiness, how's that going to be possible in a country that produces fewer and fewer consumer goods? How's that possible where the middle class *is* the primary consumer marketplace and where that part of our society is under the most stress and may even be shrinking?

If everything has to get cheaper - and in the case of food, nothing could be worse, really, since the cheapest food products tend to be the least healthy for us - what's a good capitalist to do? Well, there's the always-popular answer of lowering labor costs. Turning people into chattel. It's either continue to ship middle class jobs overseas so you can pay slave wages to workers, or risk pricing your goods and services out of the market. Now that's good capitalism at work!

The very class of people capitalists need in order to have at least a domestic market - the middle class - are the very people getting hurt the most right now. Who's doing that? It's precisely and unequivocally the fault of unfettered and unregulated capitalism and capitalists.

I mean, you're not going to blame the poor are you?

And certainly you can't blame the government for over-regulation because the RRs - Randian Republicans - successfully deregulated financial markets when they passed GLB.

I suggest you think about this the next time you hear the ultra-whack-wing-right mouthpieces like Beck and O'Reilly and Limbaugh and Palin - or elected officials with "Waterloo" agendas - criticize an administration for not yet having fixed a broken economy. Are we that eff-ing stupid to think that 8 disastrous years can be remedied in one?

Think about this the next time.....
....a jobs number comes out
....someone complains that America doesn't manufacture enough and our trade balance is all out of whack
....someone claims that what's needed is less government regulation and not more
....someone points out that the middle class is shrinking and we're headed toward some banana republic state where you have only a small percentage of wealthy people living off the backs of an impoverished population.

Exactly where are jobs supposed to come from in an economy that long ago - and in the name of corporate profits and shareholder returns - shipped most of its manufacturing overseas where there's nothing close to our definition of a middle class?

And exactly how many "services" jobs can we reasonably expect companies to create and sustain in our economy? Oh wait, many of them now exist overseas, too. Why? Because labor is cheaper there. Remember that the next time you make a "language skills" complaint about the customer service agent who answers your call. It wasn't the liberal left who outsourced that job from Minneapolis to Mumbai. Thank your friendly neighborhood capitalist.

So what's the answer to our current economic mess? Is it more government bail outs to free market capitalists who want nothing to do with government involvement in their lives and their businesses? F***ing hypocrites.

Is it protectionism? Is it isolationism? Can't keep lowering operating expenses and outsourcing jobs to Asia-Pac countries and then close off our borders to the importation of those foreign-made goods. What would happen to the income statements of our benevolent corporations then?

Is it more regulation or less? History can teach us a lot if we just take the time to study it. The first Great Depression seems to have taught us very little.

I don't profess to know the answer.

What I do feel pretty confident that I know unequivocally is this.....
....it wasn't the so-called universal health care socialists who think it's time to rein in insurance companies who put money and profits ahead of humanity and humane treatment of others
....it wasn't the advocates for social equality and gay marriage rights who keep wondering why anyone else gives a f*** about them and their desire to get hitched
....it wasn't the "nut-job" environmentalists and tree-huggers who wonder why we can't see the reality that oil barons are simply protecting the last few drops of a disappearing resource from which they will wring every last penny at our expense
....it wasn't all those worrisome waves of illegal immigrants taking all those prized lawn-care and domestic housekeeping jobs from true middle class Americans
....it wasn't the inner-city poor luxuriating in lives of crime-free-front-stoop Doritos-munching and drug dealing
....it wasn't the peaceniks and war protesters who want the government officials brought to justice who dragged this once great country as low as it could go by admittedly torturing people
....and it sure as f*** wasn't the the middle class that put us into this mess.

No, no, no. It was..................................................................................nah, I don't need to say it. You know who it was. Whether or not you'll ever admit it out loud....now that's a different question. ;-)