Christian Nation?

For decades now, religious right-wingers have been telling us that we need to be a "Christian Nation," and that God is punishing us for permitting abortion and homosexuality. I've always held that America was founded on commerce, specifically mercantilism and imperialism dependent on slavery- not on the Bible or mighty, idealized Christian principles. I also have the philosophy that a "Christian Nation" begins at home- in other words, we all need to work on producing good fruit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc. etc.) rather than trying to impose or legislate a religious morality.

But in the wake of yet another stock market dive and almost daily revelations about CEOs', Madoff, and the Bush Administration's abuses and misuses of money and government- someone said to me that we seem to be a LONG way from being a "Christian Nation," and that we seem to be a society based on greed , lobbying, deregulation, loopholes, off-the books accounting, mortgage-backed securities, schemes, plots, and getting richer quicker without any consideration of the impact on others. And Rush Limbaugh warns that the Democrats will take away our liberties. What he means is that they'll demand accountability and transparency so that the fat cats won't have the liberty to rob the rest of us blind anymore. We've already seen out privacy and Constitutional protections revoked by the Cheney/Bush government who eliminated habeus corpus, tortured and secretly listened to us.

I may sound like a liberal, even a (gasp) "socialist," and people may accuse me of inciting "class warfare," but the Bible I read says that it is "easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Matt 19:24, Mark 10:25, and Luke 18:25). I think that if we were to truly become a "Christian Nation," we would have to become our brothers' keepers. We should not just return the tax structure to what it was like under Reagan, but pre-Reagan (the middle class grew most robustly between 1932 and 1980). The Obama administration is finally starting to talk about the cost of health care and insurance, and it's high time.

The Republicans had control of all three branches of government under George W. Bush. Supposedly, their "base" are conservative-Christians. Not only did we lose our standing in the world in terms of foreign policy, but the current recession (some suspect depression) created by the supply-side, laissez faire economic faith worshiped so devoutly since Ronald Reagan began deregulating markets and busting unions, rhis recession is pulling the entire world's economics into crisis. This isn't God's divine retribution, but it IS direct result of our collective, corporate sin. The sins, not of homosexuality or abortion, or teaching evolution but the sins of greed, arrogance gluttony and avarice.

Gays and illegal immigrants aren't the problem. Iran and Iraq aren't the problem. Muslims and foreigners and Hollywood and high school and college science teachers aren't the problem. We're losing jobs and homes and insurance and benefits and maybe we want to blame Bernie Madoff or George Bush, but let's face it, as the cartoon character Pogo said back in the 50's, "we have met the enemy and he is us." Matthew 28 is important, Jesus did die for our sins so that we can join Him in Heaven someday, but you know what? Matthew 25 is ALSO important. If we aren't feeding the hungry, healing the sick, visiting those in prison, loving the unloved and unlovable- loving our neighbors and even our enemies- if we aren't caring for the poor, the aliens, the widows and orphans- if we are more intent on protecting our profits and avoiding taxes than sharing the fruit of our labor with others in need, then how DARE we call ourselves Christian, let alone a "Christian Nation."

"Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?" ~James 2:5-7

Sad legacy

If only regressives instead of progressives were on Mt. Rushmore

Here we go again

Great Depression 2.0? Dear God, let's hope not.

Supply Side Economics

Okay, quick economics lesson:
Demand-Side Economics, you raise wages, that increases the spending and saving ability of the middle class- heck it even grow the middle class. That demand, drives a need for greater supply. It works like a perpetual motion machine, the demand drives the supply, the supply feeds demand. That sustains the economy (although, admittedly, it may not grow the economy beyond what is reasonable).

Worked pretty dang good from 1932-1980, it even provided tax revenue to provide for things like the providing for the common defense, securing domestic security, promoting the general welfare, and especially securing the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity (the "American Dream," where each generation had it a teensy bit better than the last one.

Supply-Side Economics (aka Reaganomics, aka Bushonomics) on the other hand is SUPPOSED to work so that if you drastically cut the taxes of the wealthy and corporations, they'll (theoretically) reinvest in research, production, and infrastructure (see the cartoon above on the current bail-out) which (in theory) would provide more jobs to the middle and lower classes and make up the revenue short-fall with payroll taxes. The idea was that "a rising tide lifts all boats."

IN PRACTICE, human nature being what it is, greed plays a roll. CEOs pay themselves 400x as much in salary as their employees make, executives put their own interests ahead of both their share holders and the common good- and certainly their share holders still come before the common good of the community, state, or nation. Investors use their tax cuts (and looser regulations) to gamble on bigger and bigger and quicker and quicker returns.

Was it Aesop or the Grimm brothers who told us about the goose that laid the golden eggs? Feeding, caring for, and nurturing the goose gets you years of golden eggs. Butchering the goose to get what eggs are in it's belly only gets you that one or two eggs. Greed vs. sustainability. Bubbles of rapid growth, or perpetual but gradual climb? Which is better for America in the long run?

As someone with a college degree in History, I'm here to tell you friends that 1980-2008 looks a lot like 1909-1929. A "gilded age" of conspicuous consumption , unregulated corruption, and unbridled ambition. PLEASE think about this when you vote on Tuesday. PLEASE.

This is not the difference between "Socialism" and "Pro-American," this is the difference between moral (good steward, civic-responsible) capitalism and amoral (malignant, cancerous) capitalism. PLEASE put America back on the right track.

"Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men." ~ From FDR's first inaugural address, 1932

Speculation with other people's money; 1929 and 2008

The Michael Douglas/Charlie Sheen movie "Wall Street" explains that the markets have only two emotions, greed and fear, basically the greed ran things for too long, so now fear is running rampant.

The problem really started with a thing called “the global pool of money.” And if the name “pool” makes you think of gambling, as in “an office football pool,” you’re not too far off. Much of Wall Street’s woes have to do with speculating, risk taking, in other words, gambling.

Families can’t afford to save much anymore, but companies and countries are always saving (sort of). Insurance companies save for a catastrophe, pension funds are supposed to save money for your retirement, etc. etc. All the world’s savings amounts to around 70 trillion dollars. Generally, you want your savings to grow, right? Throughout history, countries and major corporations made really safe boring investments- treasury bonds and municipal bonds.

Part of our problem is prosperity. Thanks to technology and globalization, lots of countries that didn’t used to have much money to save, started to. China, India, Saudi Arabia… whether they made their money selling us TVs or oil, they started doing as well as the US, Japan and Western Europe.

In fact, the global pool of money had doubled since 2000. In 2000 this was about 36 trillion dollars. It took hundreds of years for the world to get to 36 trillion. Then, in six years, to get another 36 trillion So there was twice as much money to invest- the world wasn’t ready for it. Twice as much money to invest, but there definitely not twice as many good investments.

For almost two decades, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan kept the prime interest rate at insanely low levels, as low as one percent. In some ways that was good, it staved off inflation and it meant that people could afford cars, computers, college and houses because the rates we’d have to pay on credit, financing and loans was low.

However, that’s also part of why our personal savings rate is so low- because it’s almost not worth saving money because it doesn’t earn much interest.

This meant that investors and fund managers weren’t going to make any money at all on US treasury bonds. So, they started looking around for some low-risk, high-return investment.

Homeowners were paying 5, 7, 9 percent to borrow money from banks.

Wall Street, already famous for “leveraging” and “short-selling” found a way. Leveraging means borrowing money to lend to someone else who’s a bad risk and short-selling is borrowing stocks so you can sell them now because you expect to be able to buy them back later at a lower price and return it to the real owner and pocket the difference between the two prices.
These money changers in the temple figured out how to get the global pool of money involved in high risk mortgages.

Brokers sell mortgages to small banks. Small banks sells them to big investment firms. The market firm takes thousands of mortgages and puts them together. They had thousands of mortgage checks coming in monthly. They counted on that river coming in for at least thirty years. These were called “mortgage backed securities.”

The problem is, this greedy monster demanded TONS of mortgages, so they started buying up mortgages. Banks couldn’t keep up, so they started lowering their standards. They loaned tons of people mortgages without checking their backgrounds. Many even offered “No Income, No Asset” (NINA) loans.

Bottom line, too many people were too anxious to make too much money too quickly.

Boils down to this, too much laisser-faire (hands off) policy for too long has turned capitalism (ordinarily a good thing) into a cancer. For almost thirty years now, we’ve been following a philosophy of giving tax breaks and unsupervised freedom to big corporations, financial institutions and the super-wealthy in hope that prosperity would “trickle-down.”

But what we see again and again is that rather than re-investing in the American economy and providing jobs- what they do with their profits is to gamble with it in hope of getting even richer, or moving their operations overseas. What makes it worse, is that they don’t just use their profits and their tax cuts- time and time again, they’re using our homes and our retirement funds.

Isn’t it time to return to a philosophy of “we’re all in this together,” “I AM my brother’s keeper,” and of noblesse oblige- “to whom much is given, much is expected.”

Maybe you prefer Reagan to Roosevelt, but I gotta tell you, I think that right about now Wall Street and Washington both need to hear two important quotes from FDR's first inaugural address-

"There is nothing to fear but fear itself" and

"in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people's money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency."

Both McCain and Obama would do well to bone up on economics and read Roosevelt's speech. We certainly can’t afford to stay the course on this one. Let's all pray that we come through this storm safe, sound, and SOON!

Mourning in America

So, thanks to Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush (41) and now George W. Bush (43), the people who have to work for a living and can't afford to invest enough and don't inherit enough to have their wealth work for them- are responsible for more of the tax burden, and are earning and retaining less of our earnings. Meanwhile, inflation is creeping up, the economy is a wreck, unemployment is soaring, gasoline and milk are at all time highs, and homes are being foreclosed on. In 1970 25% of Americans were members of Labor Unions, today that's less than 8%. Thanks to Free Trade and irresponsible corporations, all of our manufacturing jobs have been sent overseas and the things we buy from China poison us.

Believe me, you don't want me to show you charts on our National Debt. But I can tell you that we owe most of it to China, and we keep borrowing from them. This war in Iraq? Something in the neighborhood of $8 BILLION a week. Who do we borrow it from? Take a guess.

I have nothing against China (Nixon) but as a middle aged Midwestern guy with blue-collar roots, I have had enough with Republican bullshit. They are not conservative, and they're not patriotic. They care more about their investment portfolios and their stockholders than their citizens or the principles contained in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Their world view has wreaked havoc on the American Dream for the last 27 years. Isn't it time for a change?

Bushenomics worse than Reaganomics

Think about it working class and middle class Midwesterners, today's Republican Party is not conservative at all, it's radical.

No nation has unilaterally invaded another while lying about it's reasons and using propaganda to contabulate the invasion with another agression that was totally unrelated since NAZI Germany.

They're not the party of fiscal responsibility anymore. They want you to believe that Dems" tax and spend," but they cut and spend and spend and spend.

They claim to be the party of "small government" yet they have systematically amassed control for their single party and power for the Executive branch that is unprecidented. They've revoked civil liberties of all kinds especially privacy, and hope to intrude on the most personal aspects of our lives- that's not less obtrusive government, that's totalitariansim.

Where they want less government is in oversight and regulation of massive corporate interests. This is the unscroupulously opportunistic agenda of an oligarcical class masked in the palattable concept of "globalism."

President Clinton ran on the promise of a New Covenant for America's forgotten working families. After twelve years of Republican presidents, America faced record budget deficits, high unemployment, and increasing crime. President Clinton's policies put people first and resulted in the longest period of economic expansion in peacetime history. The Deficit Reduction Act of 1993 — passed by both the House and Senate without a single Republican vote — put America on the road to fiscal responsibility and led to the end of perennial budget deficits. Having inherited a $290 billion deficit in 1992, President Clinton's last budget was over $200 billion in surplus. The Clinton/Gore Administration was responsible for reducing unemployment to its lowest level in decades and reducing crime to its lowest levels in a generation.

*from http://www.democrats.org/a/party/history.html

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democrat who led us out of the Great Depression and through WWII once said, "if you want to live like a Republican, you need to vote like a Democrat.

Take back your party Republicans, throw the "neocons" out, send the Bush Administration a message, either don't vote this November, or vote for Democrats or Independents.

Democrats, take back America, not for control, not for revenge, just for balance and logic and the real values and principles that the United States was founded on.

Over two hundred years ago, our Party's founders decided that wealth and social status were not an entitlement to rule. They believed that wisdom and compassion could be found within every individual and a stable government must be built upon a broad popular base...The late Ron Brown — former Chairman of the Democratic Party — put it best when he wrote, "The common thread of Democratic history, from Thomas Jefferson to Bill Clinton, has been an abiding faith in the judgment of hardworking American families, and a commitment to helping the excluded, the disenfranchised and the poor strengthen our nation by earning themselves a piece of the American Dream. We remember that this great land was sculpted by immigrants and slaves, their children and grandchildren." Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic Party in 1792 as a congressional caucus to fight for the Bill of Rights and against the elitist Federalist Party.*

It's time to fight again. The first President Bush and his advisors tried to paint the Democrats as a party of elitist "boutique liberals," and insinuated that we were controlled by Hollywood (once upon a time that was also a thinly veiled antisemetic insinuation). But think, from MASSIVE deficit inducing tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of the population to their campaign to repeal the estate tax, to the war profiteering of Haliburton and the Carlyle Group, the corruption of Enron, to all time high oil company profits, today's Republicans want us to believe that they're the NASCAR loving, blue-collar, grass roots, fundamentalis Christian party, when really they are more elitist than any other group in our nation's history.

We can't change the direction of our country and return to our true values unless we gain control of the Congress and Senate in 2006. Please vote and encourage everyone you know to vote and vote for Democrats. If you haven't registered to vote yet, register. And get everyone you know to register Democrat.

Some of my best friends are Republican, please PLEASE, send the neocons a clear message. Re-register independent or better yet Democrat. PLEASE vote Democrat. Congressmen only serve for 2 years, if you're disapointed with the Democrat, by all means, rejoin the Repubblicans and throw our candidates out again in 2008, but you have to see that your party has been stolen from you. Vote Democrat and save the Republican party you used to know.

CLICK HERE to register

Mistake of historic proportions

Benjamin Franklin coined one of his most famous quotes upon the close of the Constitutional convention, "Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

The important questions are, who’s doing the taxing, who’s being taxed, how much, and what is it being used for? Libertarians and Anarchists will remind you that the War for Independence was fought to end taxes, but the real issue was who was doing the taxing, who was taxed and how much, and where the money went. If Iowan’s taxes went to Canada, we’d revolt too.

A political activist once told me that they thought that one of the main differences between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans spend on physical infrastructure, while Dems spend on social programs. People or things.

In other words Republicans would spend our taxes on roads or street lights, Democrats on Driver’s Education programs. Case in point, the Iowa assembly, mostly Republican, want to offer money to school districts for building, but if they already have money to build, they may use the money for other things, like teacher salaries. The Teacher’s unions are frustrated with the legislature for not just offering money specifically for teacher salaries.

The old debate had always been, "guns or butter?" Somewhere in the middle of the twentieth century our Federal Government decided they should try deficit spending to try to stimulate the economy. Sometimes it helps a little, sometimes it doesn’t, but what are the long term consequences?

When I try spending more money than I have, the people I owe bills to start calling me on the phone. Don’t pay, they’ll report it and wreck your credit, right? Eventually things get repossessed.

If you were say, a hundred thousand dollars in debt, would that be a good time to quit your job? Of course not, but the Bush Administration and the Republican led Congress and Senate have decided to cut Federal revenues by at least $330 billion, even though they need to spend record amounts of money on Homeland Security, baling out the states and $50-60 billion war with Iraq.

Mind you, I love having my taxes cut as much as the staunchest Republicans. When I get my treasury check for our earned-income-tax credits- er, I mean children, we’ll probably use it to pay off some of our college loans. But I’m not sure how that’s going to stimulate the economy.

The theory behind Bush’s tax cut is the same old "trickle-down" economics of his father and Ronald Reagan. The hope is, if you give wealthy investors and corporations huge tax cuts, they’ll reinvest their savings into their infrastructure, creating jobs, producing more tax revenue from paychecks and simultaneously giving those workers money as consumers.

The fatal flaw is human nature. We don’t reinvest and create jobs, we spend on ourselves or we figure out ways to turn an even bigger profit. The rich get richer, the rest of us get poorer.

Do you deserve to keep your hard earned dividends and your capital gains? I suppose, but most of us barely know what those are and certainly don’t have any. And what about our future? Is that "class-warfare?" Then so be it. I am no communist and do not advocate any kind of socialism, but President Bush seems to see the world through millionaire’s glasses.

Some estimates suggest that the current Bush budget will increase the deficit by more than $300B over last year's $158B deficit. If you don’t remember your high school economics, the deficit is the red ink, the money you spend beyond your income, money you don’t have.

And what about our future? Will the Social Security fund still dry up by 2035? What about Medicaid and Medicare? I’m worried about health insurance and college tuition.

Annual deficits pile up and create debt. At the time I wrote this, the U.S. National debt was rapidly approaching six and a half trillion dollars! For all the reasons there are to dislike Bill Clinton, the debt was actually shrinking during his presidency. The National Debt has increased an average of $992 million per day since September 30, 2002!

Debt and deficit hurt our credit, they hurt the value of the dollar, and they hurt the economy. As bad as the economy is, is it really worth selling our future?

The estimated population of the United States is 291,066,701 so each citizen's share of this debt is over $22,000.00. That means my 1 ½ year old daughter Ellen owes $22,000!

I appreciate lower taxes as much as anybody, but I’m having a hard time enjoying this one. I think it was a mistake of historic proportions.
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