Great point.

Jean-Claude Juncker who is the Prime Minister of Luxembourg recently said concerning how to deal with the economic mess in Europe, "We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get reelected once we have done it."


I think that is very true for our own politicians as well.

My Advice to the Conservatives

I wonder how many folk really know where they stand politically? The terms liberal and conservative are tossed about rather freely; but not necessarily with a good understanding of what those terms really mean. Goggle political spectrum quiz for find sites. I used a GoToQuiz, which is okay but not great. Below is my result on one of their tests

.

 I also tested slightly above the horizontal line once. All and all it means I am a left social moderate.

I remember taking a similar but more accurate test while in seminary to see where I stood theologically. My friends all thought I was a liberal, I said I was neo-orthodox. After the test I was exactly what I said I was and most of them were far more liberal when they thought they were conservative. My point is folk often don’t really know where they fall on these spectrums and they should.

It is my belief that as a country we have made a rather extreme move towards the right mainly due to the efforts of the extreme religious right, radical right political groups such as the Tea Party and an overall lack of understanding of economics and politics in society and in particular a strong control exerted by the ultra rich and large corporate interests. This includes both parties. In particular, the Republican party is not representative of its constituents which are less radical than their leaders.

Here are some recommendations of conservatives. Give up on this protecting the tax advantages of millionaires, billionaires and zillionaires; it’s is ridiculous and has lowered the income levels of most Americans significantly and radically redistributed the economic growth of our country to a tiny minority.

Next, quit the rhetoric that you want less government. Under the Republican influence of the last 35 years there and more increasing government control and an effort to legislate morality, while deregulating necessary corporate controls. We need a government capable, of improving the infrastructure to keep us international competitive and for our own economic growth. We have increased gimmick taxes such as those dealing with gambling, excise taxes. What we have is the middle class and poor folk paying for government. Also, especially on the state and local levels we need to get rid of incentive taxes that benefit the high rollers versus small business. Wal-Marts’, Cabelas’ and the lot should not be given tax breaks over local small businesses. This has always been a danger for capitalism as seen since Adam Smith. [Side note; if you don’t know who Adam Smith is or John Maynard Keynes or Kenneth Galbraith are; you need to study elementary economics.] We should not have businesses that are too big to fail and ruin the economy, as we have recently experienced.

Also, property taxes should increase. I recall a lady’s weeping about a proposed increase in property taxes that they just couldn’t afford. They couldn’t afford it because they had bought beyond their economics means so they could indulge in outdoor activities. The Republicans, despite their verbiage, are by a large responsible for our huge debt; just examine the Reagan and G.W. Bush years. Particularly huge expenditures on wars, that were not funded by sacrificing Americans but by overseas loans. If the same amount of money had been spent on green technology, we would be employing many more people.

Finally, everyone has to get serious about health care reform. This is the single biggest economic wrecking ball in our society. It puts far too much pressure on small business. It is the poorest and the most expensive of all systems among developed countries. It needs to be fixed. The small moves of the Obama administration fall far too short of what is needed. Conservatives should be able to see that and see how it hurts our country on all economic levels.

I want to see the Republicans put forth the best candidate they have forward as that person could end up leading the country, even if I don’t want them too. Get rid of the whackos which are most the candidates which you examine the records. Gingrich is very articulate and has some good ideas but he is a man with a long history as a loose cannon capable to ruining the country. I wish Romney would not flat out lie, but he’s likely the best you have. Obama may prefer running against Gingrich but Romney is the better candidate. As for the rest of them they are just plain too extreme and nonsensical. There were others but they no longer seem in contention.

Conservatives probably could give two hoots for my opinions but I wanted to share them none the less. The country is in trouble and we need to help work towards its repair. We need more moderates in both parties so that they can lead government reform and move us away from gridlock and entrenched ideological inflexibility.

Just So You Know

THIS YEARS PGA EARNINGS

Luke Donald....................................... $6,698,214.50

Webb Simpson................................... $6,347,353.50

Nick Watney...................................... $5,290,673.50

K.J.Choi............................................... $4,434,590.50

Dustin Johnson.................................. $4,309,961.50

Matt Kuchar....................................... $4,233,920.00

Bill Haas.............................................. $4,088,636.80

Steve Stricker..................................... $3,992,784.80

Jason Day........................................... $3,962,646.50

David Toms........................................ $3,858,089.50

Adam Scott......................................... $3,764,796.50

Phil Mickelson.................................... $3,763,488.30

Rory McIlroy......................................... 2,344,609.50

Rickie Fowler...................................... $2,084,681.40

Jim Furyk............................................ $1,524,081.40

Ricky Barnes.......................................... $951,586.56

Padraig Harrington............................... $802,839.40

Fred Couples.......................................... $371,730.28

Steve Elkington..................................... $176,225.45

Rich Beem.............................................. $135,225.00

Tom Watson............................................ $72,066.63

Mark O’Mera........................................... $18,240.00

Jose Maria Olazabal.................................. $5,760.00

Hugh Drennan*............................................. $104.00

[*not technically on the PGA tour]

He says he much better than I did.

A Fat Cat Explains Basic Economics

—By Kevin Drum

| Thu Dec. 1, 2011 11:52 AM PST

91

Zillionaire venture capitalist Nick Hanauer says his marginal propensity to consume is lower than mine:

Since 1980, the share of the nation’s income for fat cats like me in the top 0.1 percent has increased a shocking 400 percent, while the share for the bottom 50 percent of Americans has declined 33 percent. At the same time, effective tax rates on thesuperwealthy fell to 16.6 percent in 2007....In my case, that means that this year, I paid an 11 percent rate on an eight-figure income. 

One reason this policy is so wrong-headed is that there can never be enough superrich Americans to power a great economy. The annual earnings of people like me are hundreds, if not thousands, of times greater than those of the average American, but we don’t buy hundreds or thousands of times more stuff. My family owns three cars, not 3,000. I buy a few pairs of pants and a few shirts a year, just like most American men. Like everyone else, I go out to eat with friends and family only occasionally.

....I can’t buy enough of anything to make up for the fact that millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans can’t buy any new clothes or enjoy any meals out. Or to make up for the decreasing consumption of the tens of millions of middle-class families that are barely squeaking by, buried by spiraling costs and trapped by stagnant or declining wages.

If the average American family still got the same share of income they earned in 1980, they would have an astounding $13,000 more in their pockets a year. It’s worth pausing to consider what our economy would be like today if middle-class consumers had that additional income to spend.

The rest is worth a read. We need entrepreneurs, but we need a thriving middle class even more. Washington DC's centrist punditocracy needs to have this pounded into their skulls.

ATONEMENT: as a governmental responsiblity

I just finished reading a book by St Anselm on atonement after finding out he was my theological counterpart (100%), even more the John Calvin (97%), so I figured I ought to know something more about him and read the book. (I found this out on an internet test that may or may not be very accurate.) For your information he. St. Anselm was the Bishop of Canterbury in 11^th Century.

For those of you who are not familiar with the doctrine of atonement, it is the belief that we ought to pay our debts to God, of which we are incapable of in and of ourselves; but that Jesus the Christ did it for us. A bit oversimplified, but you get the idea.

This began my thinking on atonements’ political counterparts. I have always hated self-aggrandizing statements such as: “a self made man,” “drawn up by your own bootstraps,” or as in the poem Invictus, “I am the captain of my ship the master of my soul…” Self made man my arse! Each of us is dependent upon parents (or at least a fertilized egg) for our existence. Human babies are the most dependent of all critters. That dependence carries through all of humanity. We are dependent upon each other whether we acknowledge it or not. Few of us grow our own food, we are dependent upon food growers; the same is true for shelter, clothing, and ipods. We are indebted to the world we live in for everything we have. We may bluster on about our hard work to pridefully talk about our various accomplishments, but that is sheer vanity. We work, all of us, some harder than others, but it is mainly luck and circumstance that enable us to succeed or not to succeed in life’s endeavors. For example, the folk in working poverty levels having three jobs to just make their family survive work just as hard and a major corporation CEO, and often much harder. Remember the TV show where bosses went to work in their own companies anonymously? They became less prideful and more thankful to their workers.

I believe that is the real cry of the WSO’s (Wall Street Occupiers) demonstrating around the country. They are not the slackers that their detractors say they are. They are demonstrating against the real slackers in our country, those ultra rich who mainly derive dividends from the work of others. That banker who manipulates the market for homeowners to lose their houses rather than working hard enough for them to succeed is just an opportunistic slacker. The big corporations who hire lobbyists to write and get bills passed in congress to benefit themselves at the expense of others are slackers. Politicians who depend on these lobbyists to do their work and fail to remember they are the servants of the public are slackers.

It is nice when the Rockefellers and Carnegies of times past gave the country libraries and other benevolence activities, but they could do that because the stood on the backs of those who did the real work to build their fortunes. Entrepreneurs, risk takers, should be rewarded for their risk taking, but so should those who helped them. Henry Ford showed great wisdom when he paid his workers well so they could afford the product they were building.

I am pleased that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet undertake wonderful philanthropies, but they also acknowledge, that their wealth comes from others and they have benefits others do not. Their debts to the country and the people in it and abroad are immense. So, I am glad they acknowledge that and seek to give back a bit. Atone; pay back debts. Unfortunately they are a minority of the ultra rich who have accumulated half the wealth of the country but obviously did not do half the work. They are debtors and need to atone; pay back their debts.

And that is one of the proper roles of government; to see that atonement takes place. Government is to ensure that there is justice and equity taking place in society. They are responsible to see that those who have been given much are required to give back much.

I frequently here the spurious claim, “it’s our money, and the damned government has no claim to it.” They reflect a prideful ignorance that must be taken to task. Everything they have they are indebted to others for the having of it. They are in debt to the parents who raised them, the schools that educated them, the employers who hired them, or the patrons who buy from them, the government infrastructure that enables them to share their work and product. They are debtors.

Partial atonement happens when a government sees that debts are paid with justice and equity. And our government has failed miserably as of late to do that. Our government has allowed a concentration of wealth in the hands of a few; that is completely immoral and unjust. We are acting more as an oligarchy than a democracy.

Though they may not articulate it in the way I have in this piece, it seems to me this is the cry of the WSO. May atonement be made, and justice be done.

Couldn't resist sharing this one.

Jesus and Satan were having an on-going argument about who was better on the computer.  They had been going at it for days, and frankly God was tired of hearing all the bickering.

Finally fed up, God said, 'THAT'S IT!  I have had enough.  I am going to  set up a test that will run for two hours, and from those results, I will judge who does the better job.'

So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away.

They moused. They faxed.They e-mailed.They e-mailed with attachments..They downloaded.They did spreadsheets!They wrote reports.They created labels and cards.They created charts and graphs.They did some genealogy reports.They did every job known to man.Jesus worked with heavenly efficiency and Satan was faster than hell.

Then, ten minutes before their time was up, lightning suddenly flashed  across the sky, thunder rolled, rain poured, and, of course, the power went off...

Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the underworld.

Jesus just sighed....

Finally, the electricity came back on, and each of them restarted their  computers.

Satan started searching frantically, screaming: 'It's gone!  It's all GONE!  'I lost everything when the power went out!'

Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files fromthe past two hours of work.

Satan observed this and became irate.  'Wait!' he screamed.  That's not fair!  He cheated!  How come he has all his work and I don't have any?'

God just shrugged and said,

JESUS SAVES ...

Why Does Congress Do Nothing?

Because they already have everything they want. Or, those who control them already have everything they want. Tax cuts for the rich have been accomplished. Deregulation of industry has already been accomplished. Entitlement programs have already been cut. The voice of the regular middle class American has essentially been rendered mute.

Oh, I suppose they still have to destroy Social Security and the other safety nets of society and fight some more wars that appeal to them. But essentially they have gotten everything they want.

I wonder what the country would look like had that not happened. What if Reagan had never been elected? Or Bush had not had his two terms? I think the country and the world would be much different.

Note: At this point I confused myself in trying how to figure out how to run the numbers to support my theory. Fortunately Paul K. came to my rescue and just pointed out that we should compare average incomes to medians incomes. Brilliant! Average income is taking the total national income divide it by the population (by household.) the Median income is just what most folk get as an income. I’ll just insert his figures at this point:

In 1975, the average was 1.168x the median.  In 1980 it was 1.189x.  By 1982 it was 1.205x and in 2010 it had climbed to 1.366x.

2010 average (i.e. mean) household was $67,530.  So assuming the same total national income, if income distribution were the same as it was in 1975, median income would be $57,816 (dividing by 1.168x).  If it were the same distribution as 1982 it would be $56,041 (dividing by 1.205x).  But instead it's $49,445.  So most American households are well below 'average'.

So there you have it. If we hadn’t decreased the taxes for the wealthy, made them regressive instead of progressive, if we hadn’t lifted government restrictions on business, if we had whacked entitlement programs and the lot, most folk would have $6,596 more dollars in our pockets this year. Or should that be $18,085 more dollars in our pocket? Either way, the rich have managed to move money into their pockets and out of ours.

And this is what the right has called progress over the last 35 years. Go figure.

Paul says it this way, “Yeah the Right is suffered from what I would call 'catastrophic success'.  We're pretty much living in the neoconservative economic paradise now - low regulation, low wages, low taxes.  We're living the dream here!”

Great statement! You can hear the sarcasm drip in his last line.