HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

Before you read anything into the posted photo on the right (and the right is definitely where the photo belongs) let me say that I truly have nothing against anyone rising to the top of their particular food chain and earning a great living.  We all strive to better ourselves and when we do we should not be looked upon with disdain or hatred.
Now of course most of us are human and as such we are always looking at the other side of the fence wondering how that guy keeps his lawn so much greener than ours.
But suppose we found out that our green-thumbed neighbor was actually stealing our seeds and fertilizer every night to pepper his field.
I make no determination as to how these gentlemen rose to the top of their unnecessary group (single payer would obsolete these vultures) but one still wonders.
But please do not think the pharma industry is the only one raping our coffers.
Bankers will not be in need of a telethon anytime soon, especially after we infamously bailed them out at the end of the Bush era. (error?)
Of the top earning bank CEOs the least compensated made $3.3 million last year and the average compensation was nearly $20 million.  (Looks like someone is going to demanding a raise!)
So let's juxtapose other Americans against the backdrop of the sweet elite of the pharmaceutical and banking industries and see how we're doing by taking a few items from the news.
(Click the title of each section below for the back-up and more articles on each subject.)

1. Student Debt:  Over 70% of college seniors graduated with nearly $30,000 in student loans which cannot be forgiven in bankruptcy.  Before you can really get going many have to finish their schooling.  And in order to do so you may have to pay an awful large sum of money to the institution of your choice for that education.  Unlike other more civilized countries in the world where they realize their young are their future and they subsidize their college years we treat our young as annuities for the ivy covered halls of higher learning institutions.
2. Living in Poverty:  One in Seven American is living in poverty!  That's over 46 million humans and it's the largest number of people in that undesirable sect in over 54 years!  While some are living high off the hog they seem to be doing so by hogging all the high profits from their businesses while allowing their employees the pleasure of scrounging around the sty for the remains.  And on top of that they are getting all the tax breaks the rest of us can only dream about.
3. Minimum Wage:  The CEOs of America are doing very well thank you but too many are surviving, if it can be called surviving, on a meager $7.25 per hour.  Okay many States are realizing the futility of trying to eat and keep a roof over one's head on that tiny amount and have raised their local wage minimums up but there are many, mostly of the Republican persuasion who are trying to persuade legislators NOT to raise the minimum wage as it will kill businesses and jobs.
4. Unemployment:  While it has gone down under the leadership of President Obama, yes that's right, under his watch the rate is still an unsatisfactory 6.3%.  Sadly this doesn't tell the whole story and while many a pundit will point to this number as proof of a growing economy a more telling number would include how many are so discouraged they no longer even look for a job.  And the best number to show how dismal it is even for those WITH jobs is
5. Household Income: During the twelve years from 2000 to 2012 the median household income fell 6.6%.  Take a moment to let that sink in.  In 2000 the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a high of roughly 11,700.  It hit a new high of 13,350 in 2012!  While that's only an increase of 1½% the Dow has since hit 16,800 at which time it sported a nearly 4½% increase.  The bottom line is while Wall Street and it's Dow Jones top earners are topping their earnings almost daily average Joes may be scrounging for their next meal.  And speaking of households - 
6. Foreclosures:  While the foreclosure rate has dropped overall many States are still way above acceptable levels.  And 1 in 96 homes are foreclosed on and 19% of all homes are deeply under water financially.
7. Homeless Veterans:  An argument for a National embarrassment could easily be started with the fact that many of those who risked their lives for our country come home to trade their military rank for the pleasure of joining the ranks of the homeless.  Of the 634,000 homeless people in 2012 over 62,600 were veterans.  And that brings us to - 
8. Unemployed Vets: This number is even higher than the National Average.  Those who fought our wars from 2001 forward are considered Gulf War-Era II Vets.  Their rate was around 9% in 2013!  Uncle Sam wants YOU! That is until we don't anymore!
9. Women's Health:  There are so many articles on how women's health issues are under attack that it was hard to choose just one article to point to in the above link.  You may 'Google' on your own and spend weeks reading all the fun stories of 'right wing' elements in America forcing Planned Parenthood clinics to shut because they may use the word abortion, a procedure which by the way happens to be currently allowed by law.  Coincidentally the following Republican majority States have placed rules and regulations on the people who run women's clinics that would make a sailor's hair turn white:  Louisiana; Texas; Oklahoma; Iowa; Oregon; Washington; Kansas; Wisconsin and the list is not even complete.  And finally - 
10. Voter Rights: While all the above abuse has been going on we in America still have one trick up our sleeve, the right to vote out the bad leaders and elect ones who will better serve our interests.  That is if we can get to the polls and actually cast our ballot!  Knowing how dangerous an educated electorate could be it is no surprise that certain factions within the government and the lobbies that own them wish to keep the status quo, quo by placing more and more road blocks in our way as we attempt to vote.  Leading the charge to disenfranchise those among us who have had enough and simply will not take it anymore are: Texas; Ohio; North and South Carolina; Florida; Arizona; Alaska; Louisiana; Mississippi; Georgia; Virginia and Michigan.  Scott Walker of Wisconsin wanted desperately to join the list but went too far and the courts overturned his unfair voter ID law.

I guess when you look at all the things our leaders are doing to us rather than for us we really DO need these unbelievably rich pharmaceutical giants, just to get pills to ease our pain.
If only the damn co-pays weren't so high!

Dreams, But Why Bother!

We seem to always have a political treatise or memoir hitting the book stands.  Most of them are self-serving and annoying.  But the number one job of a politician is to keep his job and basically not give a damn about yours!

A while ago a man who currently resides in the White House wrote a personal book that was not meant to garner him political gains, at least not yet.  The book was a big seller made even bigger with his eventual rise in World prominence.

This post merely uses his title to play off and it is with some small apologies to Mr. Obama that I do so.

But frankly it fits with the current atmosphere of America so...

In America we are all given a fair chance to succeed.  This is what we have commonly called the American Dream.

And we want that America Dream for ourselves and even more so for our children.

But just what is The Dream?

Back in 1928 it was simply a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage as then candidate Herbert Hoover pronounced.

Sadly after winning by a landslide over Alfred Smith he and his Republican Party could not deliver on his great claims. Funny that from them not much has changed in that department in the 4 score and 6 years since.

In fact the only thing great about his Presidency turned out to be the Great Stock Market crash and subsequent Great Depression.

The American Dream then became a next meal and a roof over one’s head.

Millions were out of work and looking to Washington for help.

Mr. Hoover did get some small accomplishments during his tenure such as increasing our Nation’s National Park footprint but basically far too little to help those who found themselves on the ground, literally!

It was the Great Depression that outlasted him and catapulted Franklin Delano Roosevelt into the White House.

And after several social programs were put in place by Mr. Roosevelt the nation appeared to be headed back in the right direction.

But we still needed something more.

And we got that nudge when Germany and Japan decided to take over the world.

World War II turned our economy around and it only took the lives of some 60 million people worldwide to do so.

Naturally there were many in politics upon whom that fact was not lost.  I mean the first part, the part about the economy, although the collateral damage probably slipped into their equation at some point.

These, for lack of a better term, war mongers realized the monetary benefit of war.  Of course only if they did not have to fight it themselves.

Former General Eisenhower famously warned about these hawk archetypes in his Presidential farewell speech when he coined the phrase, the vast industrial military complex.

And today that vast industrial military complex sucks the air out of America in many ways.

When the right wing continues to kow tow to their owners in the 1% by lowering their taxes while keeping the middle class down there is only one thing the country can do and that’s cut services!

Now of course you may say that we are all affected by service cuts but be real!  The uber wealthy do not need publicly funded services when they can literally buy an island with the petty cash in their pockets.

So service cuts hurt, harm and eventually kill the poor and middle class.

And let’s face it, when you’re dead the American dream is the least of your worries!

So we may still dream but between the Republican Party trying to gerrymander Democrats out of existence and the wealthy pulling the strings behind them there isn’t really any chance of a Disney ending for most Americans.

We will go into the big sleep with only our dreams perchance to keep our hopes alive.

Rudyard Kipling wrote “If you can dream—and not make dreams your master…“

Well we can dream but unless and until the American voter wakes up from their stupor and realizes what a terrible blight the Republican Party has become we shall only have dreams without any hope of achieving them.

And until then I must admit, Dreams? Why bother!

Why Do Costs Rise?

We have come to expect rising costs as the reason suppliers are charging us more for just about everything we purchase.

But we should look into the reasons and not take them as gospel without analysis.

What actually causes costs to rise?

The first thing we are told is the age old ‘Supply and Demand’ mantra of all ‘for profit’ businesses.

The ‘market conditions’ reason is a valid one.  But it’s sadly one that can easily be manipulated and ultimately confuse most consumers.

In our current world the forces of ‘supply and demand’ have become less of a real reason and much more of an excuse as corporations gather more profit with less expenditure.

Increased worker productivity caused by the fear of being laid off has made corporations lean and mean and hungry for more.

And together with a historically high unemployment rate, at least in longevity has given the greedy CEO a vast worker pool from which to choose his next nervous slave.

And speaking of the money made as a result of that increased productivity just where did it go?

Certainly not into salaries or new hires as unemployment has not really seen lower numbers for a long time.

So the extra cash is being funneled back into the pockets of the job non-creators!

As for a perfect example of price increases due to greed let’s do a quick review about the price of oil and gas.

In January 2009 the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $1.60. Today it hovers and fluctuates in the upper $3.60 range and has been as high as $5 in some regions with oil as high as $7.50!

That would be all well and good if the industry raking in the big bucks for their environmentally polluting product was at least paying taxes on their windfall profit but they are not.

And not only do they get a pass from the IRS they receive funding from our tax dollars in the form of congressionally approved subsidies.

To do what with you might ask?

We are told they need it for research and development or R&D.

Really?

I think Rape and Destroy would fit better in that industry.

And why use tax payer dollars when you are the most profitable industry in the history of mankind?

What they are doing with our money is researching new and improved ways of blocking the implementation of clean alternative energy.  They see the alternatives as a major threat to their profit margin.

They are correct!

But as long as they continue to own Congress and fund lobbyists who wine, dine and basically bribe our so-called leaders the World will not soon get out from under the murderous thumb of big oil.

And I am not even talking about the prolific oil spill damage these uncaring corporations are wantonly causing through neglect and sweetheart lax regulations.

So the increased prices consumers must pay for fossil fuels are not caused by a struggling industry just trying to stay afloat in a sea of oil spills and red tape governmental regulations but rather the greed of a few mega-millionaires at the top who are unsatisfied with their meager take home pay.

You see after getting used to a certain level of affluence the human spirit will always want more.  It is in our nature to exceed our current standing and succeed at whatever we choose to do.

A corporation will want more profit year after year and there should be nothing wrong with that.

But the way in which they go about this search for more almighty dollars has become vulgar.

There are only a few ways to realize a higher profit margin.

A company may:

1 - Cut costs by laying off workers

2 – Or by lowering benefits (assuming there are any)

3 – Or by cheapening the product, even further than you have done already

4 – Or by increasing the selling price.

But reality soon sets in and most if not all businesses will implement all four of the above suggestions.

Success for today’s ultra conservative business people is a larger piece of every pie.  And they feel entitled to this ever since they saw the banks get bailed out for their anti-social behavior.

So in conclusion, why do costs rise?

Actually the answer is, why not?

Nyah Nyah
Keep voting Republican

Until and unless big business is forced to play by any rules there is no hope of this trend ending.

If forced to answer the question what would they admit is the reason they raise the price of everything you need?

It’s BWC baby, Because We Can and you can’t stop us!

This is greed plain and simple and the financial rape of the very people they consider to be their customers.

And the evil frustrating ever increasing wealth gap this causes is growing as we speak and threatens to take down America as we know it, or rather knew it.

AND THEY KNOW IT!

One of the phrases that always bothered me when opposites of the political stage debated was, “And as you know…”

It says to the audience that what is about to be said by the speaker is a well known fact and his opponent is quite aware of it!

It is an annoying tactic that works because the public is basically uneducated, at least in whatever the basis for the debate is, and the speaker knows it!

I have a friend who loves to provoke by always saying the opposite of what I am putting forth.  Sometimes he deliberately takes a silly stance that goes off on a tangent from what we were discussing thus deflecting the conversation completely.

He does it for fun and while it irks me I know it does neither of us any harm.

And this brings me to the current year in politics or rather last decade or so and certainly since President Obama was elected the first time.

Other than personal monetary gain from their wealthy owners harm is the only thing on the minds of the Republican Party.

They have been saying and doing such a multitude of outrageous things that it is almost impossible to recall all of them let alone write them down in this post.

And even if I could write every one of them down I doubt anyone in today’s sound bite twitter mentality would have the patience to read it or even understand it before nodding off.

The world does not need another War and Peace novel, although this would be non-fiction, and they know it!

So let’s get down to some of the most glaring bits of right wing bull cocky that they know are downright lies.

BIRTHERISM: Obama is not an American and his Presidency should be nullified.

President Obama was not only born of an American woman the birth took place in Hawaii.  Counter to popular belief among the members of the vastly under-educated T-Party Hawaii is and, at the time of the blessed event, was an American State. AND THEY KNOW IT!

GLOBAL WARMING IS A HOAX: Many Republicans in Congress have gone so far as to say that claims of global warming is the greatest hoax ever played on citizens of this country.

One must assume the Congressman, one James Inhofe (R-OK) is forgetting his own party making believe they are governing!

This one will affect every living organism, human or otherwise which possibly excludes some politicians on the right.

The scientific community has shown over and over again that the major cause of our current rise in worldwide temperatures is increased CO2 in the atmosphere and that is the result of man-made machinery and the burning of fossil fuels.  And yet almost to a man (woman) in the Republican Party they deny it.  But do they believe their own denials?  Global warming IS real! AND THEY KNOW IT!

SHARIA LAW MUST NOT BE ALLOWED IN AMERICA!

Seriously?  Are they truly worried we will adopt it here?

Religion is for personal comfort and not to be used in Government.  The so-called Party of Family Values values neither family nor really any religion! The right wing members with several wives, not all at the same time perhaps and a multitude of mistresses would rather pander to the deluded public who believe in the talking snake rather than admit there is no such thing and never has been.  AND THEY KNOW IT!

PRESIDENT OBAMA CAUSED THE DEFICIT TO RISE. Under his leadership we now owe more than ever before and we are headed for a fiscal cliff.

Uh, no, and in fact the deficit has gone down under his guidance.  And the Democratic Party has tried to do even more but has been blocked at every turn. (I apologize to all the RWNJs out there for using the word ‘fact.’ They seem to consider it a four letter word.)  Under Bush and most Republican Presidents the deficit has gone up while under most Democratic Presidents it goes down!  AND THEY KNOW IT!

VOTER FRAUD IS RAMPANT AND NEEDS TO BE STOPPED!

We cannot allow outsiders from other States to vote in our elections. Their radical ideas will harm our way of life!

In every State where Republicans hold the majority such as North Carolina voting restrictions are being placed on any group of voters shown to lean toward Democratic candidates.

Photo IDs such as gun licenses are okay but student IDs are not.  If a college student wishes to vote in NC the parents must pay a fee.  This is called a poll tax. It's absurd, unnecessary and basically against the Constitution of  the United States of America.  But the kicker is that statistics show the number of possible yet unconfirmed fraudulent attempts to vote is 0.0002 percent. AND THEY KNOW IT!

WHERE ARE THE JOBS Mr. PRESIDENT?

Unemployment, which rose so drastically while the war mongering pair of Cheney & Bush sat on the throne, has consistently gone down while President Obama has been in the White House.  And these numbers have continued their downward trend to the utter dismay of the Republicans.  The blatant opposition by the Republicans and their hypocritical leader Boehner to any jobs bill proposal is awe inspiring in it's evil intent.  AND THEY KNOW IT!

TAXES ARE KILLING BUSINESS IN AMERICA!

It's time for the takers to start contributing to the country's economy!

This absurd notion while blocking any attempt to raise the minimum wage on those who really need the money is perhaps one of the most insidious of their odious demands.  The real takers of America are the members of Congress who take a paycheck and do absolutely nothing but stir the fires of hate and promote fear while accepting bribes from the very business leaders they claim are going broke! AND THEY KNOW IT!

OBAMA KEEPS TWEAKING THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT or ACA SHOWING IT IS WEAK AND NO GOOD!

This is one is actually easy, at least on the premise they put forth.  Tweaking it before full implementation is not only NOT a sign of weakness but the American way!  Every bill ever talked about or enacted into law has been tweaked including our Constitution which as I recall has a whole bunch of, what are they called again? Oh yeah, AMENDMENTS!! AND THEY KNOW IT!

Could it be they have nothing else and once again have to resort to lies?

In a word, and as always, YES!

But while calling them liars may not be nice do you think they know they are lying?

OF COURSE!

If not then they would be truly stupid and their dumb utterances would necessitate their ouster from office.  Their out and out intended lies are well thought out and are able to fool uneducated voters into electing them over and over again!

If every member of the Republican Party and right wingers were told that if caught in a political lie they’d face the death penalty we might never hear another word out of their mouths and conservative talk radio would finally be off the air for good!

And that is the main problem with politics today.

Politicians, especially on the radical right side of every aisle in the country pander and say things that are so ridiculous as to elicit dumbfounded looks from anyone with half a brain.

But so far they have faced no political consequence.

AND THAT THEY SURELY KNOW!

It's Not Too Late!

More and more Americans are working into their 70s and 80s not because they love to work but because they are forced to work in an ever increasingly oligarchic America.

In order to squeeze any and every possible greedy penny out of a business owners have taken advantage of a ruined economy to turn the once great and thriving middle class workers of this country into slaves for life.

The current feudal system was caused by a perfect storm of corporate greed and governmental complicity that allowed jobs to be shipped overseas putting more and more loyal American workers on the unemployment lines.

There was no tariff placed on the increased profit made by undermining the middle class and producing inferior and occasionally dangerous products in Asia.  In fact Congress acted to reward corporations for the unpatriotic practice with tax breaks!

And those tax breaks continue even as millions of Americans who played by the rules their entire lives are struggling to pay their bills.

And the bills these duped workers are forced to pay are to the same corporations who put them in their financial predicament.  The banks who ruined the housing market with countless bad decisions and were bailed out lest those millionaires lose money have come back as though nothing happened.

Oil companies that spilled their black death onto our shores in their wanton haste to find more pollutants and higher profits still receive subsidies from our tax dollars.  This while America’s infrastructure, our nation’s life giving arteries continue to deteriorate at alarming rates without any proper funding in sight.

The wealth gap between what once was the middle class and the top richest few in America is the widest it has ever been and still one political party refuses to ask the greedy sect for an extra penny to help the country get back on its feet.

One always has to wonder which group is worse, the evil greedy few who bribe officials to continue the ruination of America or the hypocritical politicians who accept the payments and turn a blind eye to the people who naively elected them.

Perhaps the under educated electorate deserves a piece of the blame but that can change in the blinking of an eye if they wake up to the facts that are staring them in the face and pocket book.

Every November we are allowed to choose the people we think will advocate for our best interests.  Then within months we see the results in the actions of those elected to office.

One thing should be painstakingly clear to anyone with a brain.  The Republican Party has consistently stood with the greedy evil wealthy would-be owners of America without a thought to the grief they are causing the very people who elected them to serve.

This must change!

Sadly the Democratic Party has not been the total knight in shining armor they proclaim to be but in a choice between the two they are light years ahead of their opponents.

Even if a so called super majority of Democrats are elected over the next few Novembers our country’s woes will not soon end but it would at least FINALLY be a step in the right direction.

And maybe, just maybe our nation’s 90 year olds will finally be able to retire with a modicum of dignity and a tiny nest egg with which to enjoy whatever’s left of their golden years.

America's New Normal

As the Dow Jones and other stock markets continue to reach new record highs and corporations report insanely high profits unemployment numbers should still alarm any intelligent economist.
Even as new workers are hired they are receiving far lower salaries and fewer benefits than ever before.  This at a time when their so-called fixed costs continue to rise.

So here is a quickie economic explanation for those who don't like to read long winded posts by way of an updated old adage:

A RISING TIDE 

LIFTS ALL YACHTS

& DROWNS THE MIDDLE CLASS

AND THE POOR



¿CE N'EST PAS? (THEY HATE FRENCH!)

The 49 Staples

Several years ago, 98 to be exact a great thriller was penned and turned into a 1935 movie.  72 years later it became a Broadway play.

All three were called The 39 Steps.

On the screen it was directed by the great Alfred Hitchcock and starred, at the time equally great actor Robert Donat.

On the stage the thriller became a comedic mystery and ran for 4 years. (I saw it and enjoyed.)

All the above has absolutely nothing to do with the following blog post except for the similarity in names.

But both have a touch of the slight of hand necessary in any successful story, joke or movie.

In the business world it has always been important to keep a watchful eye on the bottom line.  After all it is, well the bottom line!

If your company does not make a profit and continue to do so it will eventually fail.

As a business owner you may use the rationale of cutting corners to save your company and thereby saving the jobs of your employees but truthfully there's a bit more selfish than selfless going around in that community these days.

And why not?

After all they started the business to make money and employees are merely tools to help them do just that.

One way companies turn a profit is offering something the public wants and can afford.

Another way to have a healthy bottom line is to make sure costs are kept in line.

And still another is to get the cheapest labor available and pay them less than they deserve while charging them for any benefit still offered and pushing any healthcare costs onto their backs.  And should they complain, well as long as the unemployment numbers are favorable you can always find someone else!

The wave of the future, make that the now in the business world is to stop chipping in on any pension or 401K retirement plan.

They are also dropping any spousal or family coverage from health insurance plans.

Some companies are even watching what their employees eat and quietly demanding they make healthier choices.  They are not doing this out of any concern for the employee but rather to lower costs on insurance as required by their actuarial bean counters and pencil pushers.

And finally we get down to the minutia or mind bending mindless micro managing mania most businesses are getting into so as to maximize perceived profit.

The tools of the trade must be protected and employees must account for everything they use.

I have spoken with and listened to workers who have slowly been struck by this trend and in order to do their jobs some must:

* Bring in their own pens.

* One gentleman told me he steals pens from a bank because his company no longer supplies them and he doesn't have that many at home.

* Sign requisitions for any supplies including pens, post-its and legal writing pads.  This from a legal secretary!! 

* Bring in your own monitor and keyboard because the only one the company would supply is filthy and disgusting and in need of tossing out of a very high window. This from a new salesman in the company.

* Use the back sides of every sheet of used paper that comes out of the printer rather than a new sheet.  Of course this means you better know which side of the sheet is the important one.  You have to stop and date each side and cross out the old items after use.

What these businesses are missing is the proverbial forest in and among those trees they make believe they are trying to save.

Productivity suffers when tools of your trade are inferior or hard to use or your employees have to worry about how many pens they need per month.

So finally would you like to get back to the title of this post and its relevance with the body?

Funny you should ask!

A stapler being used to attach tickets to our product ran out and I was asked to get replacements.

Count how many & win a prize?

I visited our supply lady and her reply was:

“How many?”

“Excuse me?” I said shaking my head.  “Uh, 49!  Just give me some please.” 

She opened the box took out a strip.

I grabbed it.

I believe there are 210 staples per row and I was not going to wait around for her to count!

There is no Hitchcock-like mystery here.

What’s going on is the simple insidious re-education of Americans who ‘don’t have’ by those who do in how to help the wealthy make and keep more money!

Corporate profit above people’s lives, livelihoods, and sanity has become a staple of nearly every industry.

And it’s being done one step at a time.

The Rich Envy Us!?!

There are many points of view on the world and these days everyone has a blog that gives voice to them.  One of the many is a blogging duo who go by the name of Lester & Charlie.

I need add nothing to the following poll which comes by way of their collective brain:

Last week, after a national poll showed that two-thirds of the country now sees a strong conflict between the haves and the have-nots, psycho-rich Mitt Romney stated: “You’re all just jealous.”

We wondered if Mitt and his crowd aren't really jealous of US - so we asked why YOU think the haves might be jealous of the have-nots.

And here's how you answered:



Write-in answers include:

• Because they get to own a heart
• They know where to buy the best second-hand clothes
• Because they've never had the joy of receiving an unemployment check
• They can't live with the reality of what they have done
• They want to know what it's like to spend 50% of their income on clothes, just to keep their boss happy
• They're jealous that we pay for all the roads and bridges and they only get to have their names put on them when they're dead
• Because life cannot be appreciated without a struggle
• They suspect that poor people get a discount on the Lester & Charlie newsletter

Is it Really the New Normal

For various reasons we humans find it easier to cope with adversity if it has a name.  I guess it's rooted in our 'misery loves company' psyche.  But just giving something a name does not make it any less painful or dangerous.
People died in the millennium before ours due to causes unknown. We now know many of those deaths were due to cancer.  So now we know.  But they're still dead!
For years we have been hearing about the 'new normal' from economists and pundits.  The use of the word 'normal' explaining how our faltering economy is basically here to stay certainly does not make it easier for the so-called 99%-ers.  These are the people who are stuck in low paying high stress jobs, that is if they're lucky, and on unemployment or worse if not.
The new normal is actually a way to explain how the uber rich of our country have quietly and unceasingly usurped power by any means necessary.  These people have become inordinately richer while the rest of the country has gone down the tubes.
The gap between the top 1% and the rest of us has widened to the point that they no longer consider us as even necessary.
Oh of course some of us are needed to buy whatever product they are selling or use whatever service they offer but the bottom line is with over 7 billion sheep in the herd the shepherds know there will be a whole lot of grazing going on somewhere.
And the flat earth's global market will provide plenty of opportunities for them.
The one thing we Americans always had going for us was our culture of education and the freedom to do what we wished to do within the friendly open confines of the law.  We were the envy of the world and people wanted to come here and join in the celebration.
We all figured that if you got a college education and worked hard you could live the American dream.  But we forgot that in order to dream you generally sleep and that's what most of us did, we slept.
And while we slept at the wheel a growing number of opportunistic financiers and their friendly politicians slipped into the driver's seat.  They figured out a way to harness the dreams of the sleepwalking masses turning them into realities for their own use.
Little by little they changed laws and altered regulations.  And every change altered the playing field a touch more so that any cash they made they kept.  And their cabal grew more wealthy and more powerful.
And the more power they had the more others wanted in.
But the club was kept exclusive and the entry fee was what some religious types would call 'your soul.'
While this was going on the public, the soon to be forgotten middle class was fed the illusion that they could make it to the top by hard work and perseverance. (Click the above link to read a great article from the Atlantic magazine.)
Advertisements showing the good life; politicians stumping with phrases like 'lower taxes' and a better economy to come; radio and TV personalities making believe they are 'of the people' all polluting our minds aimed at sending us back to sleep.
Ssshhhh, don't wake the sleeping bear.
The funny thing is that whenever someone hears the words, 'Lower Taxes' they think THEIR taxes will be lowered!
It is so absurd as to be laughable.
It should be obvious that in order to run a country you must have some capital, some revenue, somewhere, an influx of cash as it were.
And normally that comes from a general fund comprised of donations, generally mandatory and known as taxes.  That is how a civilized country continues to grow and prosper.  And the more you have the more you can and should pay.
One of my fantasies has always been to owe and pay over a million dollars in taxes.  Of course I would be known as a schmuck to every Republican in the country.  That would please me even more!
According to many economists the only people who will make it in the near future will be the highly educated, the ones with more than a BS degree from college.
These people will still be sought after to work with the overlords of the global economy while the rest will have to scrounge around for the lower paying scraps left behind.
And along with this new normal comes another enigma, and this one is far more insidious than one would have imagined 100 years ago.
In order to keep their power the top 1% of the wealthiest in the world must have politicians in their pockets.  After all without them  making laws and regulations all they have accomplished would erode and they might lose a billion here or there.  And pretty soon you're talking about real money.
So the they pay for ad campaigns and fund huge rallies to get the masses, those sheep of the country to vote against their own best interest.
There are more registered Democrats than Republicans since there are more people in need of what the Democratic party stands for.
The Grand Old Party clearly is all about big business and large multi national corporations.  And when they say lower taxes they do not mean it for the average Joe on Main Street but the average billionaire on Wall Street!
And yet many Republicans get elected, far more than should and that means many people are voting for their own downfall!
I have often used a wonderful saying from the show 1776 in which Mr. Dickinson a Representative to the Continental Congress of that year says that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor.
And that reality is why they continue to vote for men and women who truly don't give a rat's butt about them.
Another phrase we all must heed is, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it!
I will not go through all the historic reasons why Republicans have been bad for the middle class and the American economy as a whole, that is your job - educate yourself!
The enigma is that in order for the more educated of our leaders to stay in power they must keep a majority of Americans uneducated.  Sadly that appears to be working!
But one point about our friends in the GOP needs noting.  Their policies of getting rid of teachers and going after any group or union that has shown itself to be comprised of members who vote Democratic are clearly aimed at keeping future generations uneducated.
And that is the plan.
That is the new reality, the new normal.
Or at least it is until the majority of Americans wake up and smell the stench coming from the right side of the aisle and realize it ain't coffee!

We Disagree - Agreed? Now Move On!

If we cannot agree that we will all disagree on at least as many issues as we agree upon then may we agree that we are all fooling ourselves?

Agreed?

We will never have only one national opinion on any one issue.

For example, I commute to and from work on public transportation every day.

I sit (hopefully) on generally late, somewhat dirty and unfortunately unreliable Long Island Railroad trains upon which I catch a few extra and heartily needed minutes of restless sleep.

But I have worked with people who insist on sitting in traffic driving to and from work every day.

Aside from the fact that hopefully those people do not catch 40 winks while on the road they are creating and breathing in pollution while adding to our nation’s dependence upon and usage thereof foreign oil. (I am assuming they do not use electric vehicles as the ones of whom I speak do not.)

But I am smart enough to know that I can not change their ways when it comes to this particular behavior so I will not try.

I also realize that their choice, as dumb and expensive as it is does not affect my life, at least not in a day to day way and not in the near future.

I do not believe the issue between driving to work vs. commuting should be a campaign issue and luckily it is not.

But different personal choices have become campaign issues. These choices are more invasive than open heart surgery in that they affect our lives every day and will continue to do so for the rest of our lives!

I am speaking about religion and its pervasive effect on our entire political system.

Recently a deluded self-serving so-called pastor named Jeffress, not surprisingly from Texas claimed that Willard Mitt Romney is not a Christian since he is a Mormon and Mormonism is a cult.

Hey pastor, so is Christianity!

So is Judaism!

And by definition so is every religion that ever was, is, or will be practiced on this Earth!

When a “man of God” claims that another “man of God” is a member of a cult he is truly invoking the kettle/pot analogy and making himself out to be a small minded inconsequential moron. (That’s moron, without the second M.)

Clearly there is no way to dissuade someone from their belief as long as that person is at peace and comfortable with it, nor should we try as long as it does not affect others.
However when belief in that cult becomes part and parcel of their ideas on how to rule over others we must be wary of electing them to any position of power.

Think of Ayatollahs or Mullahs.
It's really not a complex issue but when someone gets a God complex they become dangerous. (Unless of course they do so while actually walking on water and then, uh well sorry about that and by the way when may I expect that pony we spoke of?)

Naturally the whole separating religion from government idea is not solely mine nor is it new. It was the general thought of General George Washington of First President of these United States fame!

In several statements made by that prominent figure and founding father of our founding days Mr. Washington decried the use of religion as a process that stagnated progress.

When people who are allowed to speak to a crowd or on television spout ideologies as though they were the key foundation for electing a President their statements should come with loud disclaimers or be stopped by a 5 second delay and relegated to Fox Non-News channels only.

For years we have been languishing with a stagnant economy continued by a do-nothing Republican led agenda whose only stated job is to remove President Obama from their sight!

Rather than addressing issues such as:

High unemployment;

Wealthy people who pay little or no tax;

Corporations that sit on obscene amounts of cash refusing to invest in the country that made them wealthy;

The same corporations trading American jobs to workers overseas;
The ruination of our once great infrastructure and;

The calculated murder of the middle class that used to be the envy of the entire world

The Republican majority in the House continues to call anything brought forth by the President as, “Dead on arrival!”

Instead of looking for ways out of our terrible mess, brought on by a Republican President and his cronies they are content to change the subject and allow debates over who has the better religion and who follows the teachings of that Jewish guy from the year one!
Truth is if we look at the actions rather than the words most Republicans choose to ignore the phrase WWJD.

So listen closely and you may hear the sound of our founding fathers spinning mightily in their graves!

Americans may not be able to agree on much these days but one thing is clear and without dispute; Republicans have not done one thing to create jobs since they took over the majority in the House of Representatives by claiming they had a jobs plan and that it would be Job Number One for them.

We must remove that man
before he helps the little
people and makes my master
pay another penny in taxes.

The only job plan they have pursued was the one laid forth by that large jowled Senator from Kentucky, Mitchell McConnell who only wants to get rid of Obama. And toward that end he would not mind seeing America go down the toilet.

And no matter what side of any argument you find yourself on that last statement is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but!

Remember America?

Me neither!

At least not the America with that ‘can do’ spirit; the one that built cities from coast to coast and border to border; and then built an impressive matrix of highways linking every city and town to one another.

The America that landed on the moon less than a decade after declaring it would do so.

When America was cowardly attacked on that December Sunday in 1941 we weren’t told to go out shopping, we mobilized and rebuilt our lost naval forces. Every able bodied citizen signed up to defend the country, with the only draft necessary being the declaration of WAR!

We doubled our efforts to secure our borders and those of our free world partners and we didn’t come back till it was over over there.

Have we made mistakes along the way?

You’re damn straight we did!

But we made those mistakes honestly while trying to do the right thing.

We knew we were one nation, a union of states comprised of large and small municipalities all eager to follow and attain the American Dream; keep it alive for our children and their children and so on and so forth.

There have always been differences of opinions on how to make the country stronger and help our citizens live more productive lives.

So what happened to that experiment called America?

When did our creed turn to greed and our ideals go to seed?

It has always been true that in order to have more than your neighbor he or she must, by definition have less than you.

In the past you earned more by doing a better job or working in a more profitable field. That has, for the most part changed and I’m afraid it has changed forever.

For one thing our own success has made the old America an impossible relic of the past.

We no longer need as many workers to do the same job and many of the jobs we do need are now done overseas.

Things are so bad that some people even long for the job where you ask, "Would you like fries with that?"

Take the book industry as a perfect example.

With the advent of ‘e-books’ people are now carrying the Nook or the Kindle etc. and downloading their favorite read.  And guess where those products are manufactured!

Aside from the tremendous number of jobs forever lost with the disappearance of bookstores nationwide consider the ancillary industries hurt by this unstoppable trend.

Publishing houses, paper manufacturers, delivery companies, the printing industry, ink manufacturers etc. will all lose out in the transition.

Should we stop this from happening?

Of course not.

And even if we wanted to, how?

Technology may be a blessing but it is also a curse. And it’s a curse that we here now rehearse not just in North America but in the entire world. (Credit to Sherman Stone & Peter Edwards, "1776 the musical.")

But I am nowhere near the first person to bemoan the inexorable march forward of technology without intelligent leadership and forethought. This article was printed over a decade ago!

So can we turn that trend around?

First of all it is not a trend, it's the new reality.

No one can fault a business owner who answers only to his stockholders for lowering his costs. And if lowering costs means laying off half his American work force replacing them with bargain basement priced willing workers from what we used to call the third world then so be it!

We will eventually get those jobs back when we are willing to accept less in compensation than our friends in far off foreign lands.

When America is finally considered a third world country we will start to take large chunks out of that pesky unemployment number.

However total salaries will remain tremendously reduced while the profits of the corporations meting out the measly pay will continue to rise.

Government will aid corporations by continuing to lower or remove regulations completely.

As a reward for hiring one or two Americans per year Congress will stop bothering them with pesky rules about polluting the environment or worker safety and maybe even give them more tax breaks.

Although at this point any further tax break will entail that dirty word stimulus since they are already paying no tax as it is!

Today it was announced the President Obama has given in again to Republican whining and taken a huge step backwards on environmental protection.

Banks offer little or no interest to consumers and have little or no interest ion loaning them money either.

Many of the jobs people in this country will be fighting over will be in the service sector as in serving or servicing the wealthy since they will be the only ones with cash.

When the President talks about jobs he must understand that nobody can force businesses to hire more workers than they need.

The time to stop our job loss to foreign shores was twenty years ago.  That was when our leaders eschewed any tariffs on imported goods thus making it profitable to ship the jobs as well as the product away.

In fact they made it even easier if not necessary with forward thinking ‘free trade’ agreements.

In the scheme of things those agreements will end up being a good thing for the world.

But remember what I said earlier, in order for the rest of the world to have more – we must by definition have less!

Spokesmen for businesses use lame excuses like ‘uncertainty about the future’ as reasons not to hire. Yet CEOs continue to distribute obscene profits among themselves and their friends while millions of Americans no longer know whether they will be able to afford food in their old age. I guess the uncertainty of which these hypocrites speak is on the other foot.

The only jobs our government can create would be in the vastly needed arena of infrastructure repair. But even that essential national project will never come to pass as long as our leaders think only of themselves and their next election or how to get the other guy out of office.

Even a speech by the President ABOUT jobs is a bone of contention for the opposition party as they whine that it would conflict with their petty debate amongst themselves to see who they want to replace him.

And sadder still is the fact that our President agreed to move the speech back to wait for his detractors to finish their love/hate fest.

So as you can see historically high unemployment numbers are here to stay.

When and if the economy comes back it will not do so for everyone.

It simply cannot!

There are more unemployed and under-employed Americans than ever before because there are fewer jobs FOR Americans than ever before.

If we continue down the pothole filled road we’re on the top 2% of Americans who are considered extremely wealthy will hold or control over 90% of the country’s money.

At that point the middle class will no longer exist and very few if any Americans will be able to afford what was once considered a comfortable retirement.

Those of us lucky enough to have a job will die with our boots on.

And those of us unlucky in that respect will be ridiculed and reviled by the top 2% overlords of the country as lazy good for nothing drug taking baby making losers.

On the downside for our overlords with the middle class shrinking into obscurity there will be no wallet from which to steal enough money to fund the vast military complex that President Eisenhower spoke about in his farewell speech.

The NY Times alluded to this last December as well.

And without the ability to wage war or protect the country from attack many of the wealthy unpatriotic business owners will take up residence elsewhere, possible closer to their money. 

America will have gone full circle from inconsequential upstart to super power and back again.

Of course this gloom and doom picture I paint does not have to become reality.

Our leaders could stop being idiots and instead ideate.

America can once again use its ingenuity to create new industries.

But in order to do this we must continue to educate our children and give them the best chance to compete in this flat small global economy. And we don’t do that by firing teachers and cutting out Pell Grants and other loans for higher education in order to line the pockets of the filthy rich.

Our leaders will have to start acting LIKE leaders and do the jobs for which they were hired and highly paid!

They will have to talk AND LISTEN to one another and realize we are one nation and we can only survive if we remain indivisible, doing so with liberty and Justice FOR ALL!

Many of you who read this will remember the America I allude to at the beginning of this post but if we do not soon alter our current course your children will not.