Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter #161
Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in
Through informing and networking Liberals and Liberal Organizations.
Our vision is hundreds of thousands of well-informed
Our
Political Priorities ·
Fair Clean
Elections and Open Government ·
Fair Taxes and
Competent Spending ·
Investment for
Productivity ·
Quality
Health, Education, Jobs, Income ·
Environmental
Protection and Energy Independence ·
Security and
Equal Rights ·
Justice and
Peace Everywhere ·
International
Cooperation and Leadership Conservatives oppose all of these Let’s
End Our National Nightmare
Let’s
Restore Our American Dream More on Conservative opposition to our
American Dream Washington State’s 5 Major Needs ·
Federal
Funding for Health and Education · Substitute
a Progressive Income Tax · Replacing
Conservative Legislators Quote of the Week Successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is
the usual developmental pattern of mature science. Thomas
Kuhn (1922-1996) For more.
Communication with Our Members
My
favorite advocacy groups are ones which best address our major issues. These include: Economic Opportunity
Institute, Washington Public
Campaigns, Washington
CAN (Community Action Network), Statewide Poverty Action Network),
Sightline, Futurewise, and Environmental
Priorities Coalition (and its members.
Beginning with the Economic Opportunity Institute, I am going to
describe their missions and activities and direct you to their reports.
Calendar of Events
Friday,
February 13 at 7 PM at Rainier UU Center (835 Yesler Way, Seattle) - Film Screening & Discussion “Present in All That We Do”, a documentary about hostility toward
immigrants in Bellingham one hundred years ago and now. Arrive 6:30 for coffee and visiting.
Monday, February 16 at 10 AM to 4 PM at – Democratic Party Precinct
Organization training. $10 including
lunch.
Monday February 16 at 5 PM at Saint Martins University Pavilion (5300
Pacific Avenue SE, Lacey) – Democratic Party Crab Feed, with Governor
Christine Gregoire, Congressman Adam Smith, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown
and other Democratic government officials.
$50. To buy
tickets.
Saturday, March 7 at 7 PM at Northlake Universalist Unitarian Church (308 Fourth Ave South, Kirkland) – David Korten addresses Real Security, Community and the New Economy.
Saturday, March 14 at 6 PM at Seattle Center Fisher Pavilion – Futurewise Carnaval
Dinner and Fundraiser, including live and silent auctions. $85.
RSVP by March 6th.
Opportunities
and Petitions
Opportunities
Useful
Websites: contacts, maps, community organizing tools, and more.
Access
to jillions of political cartoons.
Download
Sightline Institute’s climate policy primer ‘Cap and Trade 101’. About
Sightline.
Learn
more about the Obama-Biden policy agenda and share your ideas.
For updates from Obama-Biden Transition Project, including
video of Obama’s weekly address.
Ask Democratic national
committee Chair Tim Kaine about future of Democratic Party.
Obtain Progressive
States Networks resources for improving many state government services.
Petitions and Donations
Tell
the Nigerian government to stop wasteful flaring of natural gas.
Tell
President Obama to appoint an envoy to deal with Darfur and Chad.
Tell
President Obama to appoint an envoy to deal with Darfur. Different petition than one above.
Tell
your house member to support the
Omnibus Public Land Management Act without amendment.
Tell President
Obama to protect Alaska's Tongass rainforest.
Tell President
Obama to create a Whitehouse kitchen garden with Tacoma’s Carrie Little as
gardener.
Tell your
congress members to pass the economic stimulus-investment proposals now.
Tell
your congress members to support 7 steps to a green stimulus.
Tell your
congress members to support clean energy provisions in stimulus-investment
package.
Tell your congress
members to legislate a cap and trade system to reduce global warming.
Tell
your senators to keep support for early childhood education in our stimulus-investment
package.
Tell
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to protect Rocky Mountain wolves.
Commentaries
From Our Members
Linda Seltzer: Please Remove Me from this
Anti-Semitic Group
Please remove me from this list and newsletter. I wanted to join a group of liberals. I do not seek to be a member of a group that
has, however unintentionally, fallen into Anti-Semitism without studying Jewish
history or Israeli current events. Sorry,
but I have better things to do with my time.
Linda Seltzer
Cheryl Banks: Encourage Support for President
Obama
Dave, I think that it is true that the country has changed a lot in
these past three weeks. You are smart to have picked up on it and are willing
to respond.
Sincerely, Cheryl Banks
Alex O’Reilly: Tell Me about Bellevue’s Top
Human Services Needs
As a
Bellevue Human Services Planner, I need to know what you believe are Bellevue’s
top human services needs. Please inform
me of your concerns for a report I am composing. Alex
O’Reilly (425-452-2824, AOReilly@bellevuewa.gov)
Cliff Wells: Replace Andrew Jackson with Martin
Luther King on our $20 bill
Jack Smith: Help Support Bus Ads about Gaza
These five photos are on 12 Metro
Buses in downtown Seattle: one,
two, three, four, and five. Twelve buses that say END SIEGE OF GAZA - will
be added on Monday between Seattle and Bellevue and when we raise more funds,
we will add 12 more between Mercer Island and Seattle.
The cost is $300 per bus for
a 4 week ad - that is Great Bang for the Buck, as they say. Most important it
is an excellent method to educate people on the travesty in Gaza today.
This is very much a grassroots operation, with no corporate funding. We
ask that people who are able give $10, $30 or more if they can afford it.
Contributions should be mailed to AACC, P.O. Box 31642 Seattle WA 98103;
noting "Bus
Ad."
Liberals
and Democrats
Obama Watch – Week 3
An Unprecedented Rapid Start
President
Obama’s transition team quickly filled his staff positions and nominated
cabinet members, with only several glitches.
Although our commercial media pundits dramatize the glitches, he has
already signed various executive orders and several long delayed bills. Our major stimulus-investment package is
moving quickly toward passage.
The
most difficult unresolved issues are responding to mortgage defaults and
bailing out financial companies in order to increase credit. The major obstacle is indecision concerning
how much to continue our Borrow, Consume
and Speculate habits and how much to painfully return to Earn, Conserve and Invest habits, which
were prevalent during our prosperous period following World War II. We need to decide how much credit we should
have and what financial qualifications households should have to assume
mortgages. Our answers to these
questions will ease our making decisions concerning bailing out financial
companies and defaulting borrowers.
A Master Strategist
President
Obama is a master strategist, keeping his eye on winning the war, even as he
loses a few battles. Passing our stimulus-investment
package is winning the war. Knowing that
some Republican Senators must support passage of our stimulus-investment
package, he continues to reach out to them, even at the cost of some
investments in education, other human infrastructure and assistance to state
and local governments.
Our
stimulus-investment package passed the house without any Republican support,
was modified in the Senate to gain 3 Republican votes necessary to passage, and
now has been compromised by a conference committee to be passed soon for
President Obama’s signature. For more. For more. Liberals can support virtually everything in
the package, although we would desire more investment in our physical and
social infrastructure. The package
delivers on President Obama’s campaign promises to cut taxes for 95% of
Americans. It provides greatly needed
assistance our state and local governments.
It
introduces a disagreement between Republican congress members and Republican
state and local officials and legislators.
It opens the door for further public investments. After a 50 year wait, John Kenneth Galbraith
is smiling from heaven.
Poor Framing
I am
surprised that the Obama Administration has poorly framed the cost of our stimulus-investment
package. Conservatives have been allowed
to complain about the $800 billion cost (over 2 years) as though there would be
no cost without the package.
The
Bush administration has left us with an economy which is losing hundreds of
thousands of jobs each month. With an
increase from 4.6 to
7.6% unemployed, there are now 3% (4.6 million) more of the labor force unemployed
than in early 2007. Since each worker
produces $94,000 ($14.5 trillion GDP divided by 153 million workers), the annual
cost to our economy is $430 billion ($94,000 times 4.6 million workers) per
year. At an average annual earned income
of $50,000, lost household income per year equals $230 billion per year. The cost to our government would be the lost
income tax on $230 billion per year plus the costs of services and payments
caused by increased unemployment.
In
addition, we have lost several trillions in speculative home values and several
trillions in speculative stock market values.
We will and should perhaps lose some more. But stimulating our economy will prevent us
from over-correcting these values and ease the transition to appropriate ones.
If
unemployment continues and increases because our government does nothing, our
economy will lose more than $430 billion a year, our workers will lose more
$230 billion per year and our government will lose some amount. If spending $800 billion puts 4 million
people back to work, increases our national production and their incomes,
reduces the amount of household dislocation (mortgage defaults, bankruptcies,
divorces and mental illness), and the government recovers some of its money, it
may be a very good deal.
This
statistical argument is too complicated for framing, but supports it. The basic
choice is between losing more than $800 billion in production plus
experiencing many other negative consequences (due to Conservative economic
policies) or spending l$800 billion over
the next two years. The economic stimulus-investment
package costs us nothing. It enables us
to regain the more than $800 billion that Bush’s economic policies have already
cost us.
Conservative Hypocrisies
·
Given the
increasing collapse of our economy, only a few Conservatives (mostly ones who
aren’t in congress) argue that no stimulus is needed.
·
They mostly argue
that our stimulus-investment package is too large, even though they voted for
all of President Bush’s budgets with huge deficits.
·
Even though large
tax cuts contributed to our economic mess, Conservatives still argue we need
more tax cuts (including supply side tax cuts for business) instead of
investments which directly create jobs.
·
They argue that
investments in our infrastructure won’t be spent soon enough, even though they
supported permanent tax cuts as
economic stimulus.
·
Even though they
have long argued that services are better offered by state and local
governments instead of our national government, they are now warning that including
funding for the former will be wasted by poor state and local decisions.
·
They were wrong
when they predicted in 1993 that Clinton’s tax increases on the wealthy would
harm our economy. They now argue that
our package won’t stimulate the economy.
Even if it takes a while, our economy will improve and Democrats will
receive credit for their stimulus efforts.
I believe that Republican attempts to delay our stimulus-investment
package, their refusal to vote for it and their hypocritical arguments will harm
them. With 5 incumbent Republican
senators not running for re-election in 2010, Democrats can expect to win more
senate seats.
Our Current Political Struggle Is Only
the Beginning
Our
Obama administration will soon unveil its 2010 budget proposal. It will surely include more expenditure for
physical and human infrastructure. It
will also include reduction of subsidies for powerful corporations and for
military technology which fulfills no realistic defense need. It may include eliminating the Bush tax cuts
for the wealthy. Republicans and their
cronies will certainly fight these shifts in budget priorities. So expect another big battle. For
more.
Our
Obama administration will then address health care and coverage reform. Even though more Americans, more employers
and more providers will support reform than ever before, private insurers and
market fundamentalist Republicans will provide strong resistance. Complicating the struggle will be a lack of
consensus among reformers concerning whether to support a single payer or a
compromised approach which includes private insurers. So another big battle.
What
will follow in 2010, will depend upon the outcome of these battles. And the extent to which our economy is
recovering. If the economy is recovering
and we win these battles, we can expect even further progress in 2010, followed
by election victories which further weaken the Republican Party. Hopefully, we can also beat Republican state
legislators to preclude them from gerrymandering the redistricting following
the 2010 census.
Conservatives Falsely Claim Liberal Values
President
Obama has stoutly defended old-fashioned values: honesty, hard work, courage, fair play, tolerance, curiosity, loyalty
and patriotism. Some Conservatives have
proclaimed these values as their own.
Thus Obama is seen to be at least partly Conservative. But these are Liberal values. We are the ones who believe in freedom, opportunity,
fairness, tolerance competence, compassion, cooperation and our constitutional
rights.
Conservatives
are the ones who reward wealth instead of work, inequality over fair play,
intolerance and lack of compassion. They
are the ones whose dogmas preclude curiosity to determine realities. They are the ones whose put private interests
before public patriotic interests. For
more.
Sometimes Pictures Say a Lot
Here’s the Beef
President
Obama offers leadership lessons.
President
Obama is a fighting conciliator. He uses
both carrots and sticks.
See the ten
proposals which received the most votes from 650,000 respondents to Ideas for
Change.
Ten actions
President Obama should take, but maybe won’t.
Liberals
must maintain an independent movement outside of Obama’s movement (video).
Liberals
start movement to influence public opinion to support gov’t measures to rebuild
economy.
Two thirds of Americans
support President Obama’s handling of stimulus-investment package.
President Obama
addresses us about our stimulus-investment package (video).
President
Obama is dealing with many of Keynes’ government-economy concerns.
Treasury
Secretary Tim Geithner unveils bailout plan to support $1.5 trillion in new
lending.
Our people are
revolting against bailing out financial companies which caused our mess.
Unlike
Treasury Dept, FDIC has expertise to take over, reform and resell banks.
Security
Exchange Commission chief resigns, replacement will investigate, stop and
punish fraud.
How far will
President Obama go to promote unionization?
President
Reagan clobbered unions. President Obama
clobbers overpaid executives. For
more.
President
Obama supports bankruptcy reform.
Obama
administration will change U.S. Forest Service policy to counteract global
warming impacts.
President
Obama should promote a stimulus package for the whole world, especially poorest
countries. For more (video).
What
will President Obama do about climate change and when?
President
Obama should create panel to investigate claims of abuse by the Bush
administration.
Rush
Limbaugh is Conservative version of Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
Some
Republicans cooperate with President Obama.
Others seek his failure.
Republicans
choose partisanship over cooperation to stimulate economic recovery.
Republicans
disliked filibusters when they were in control.
Now they like them.
Republican
mortgage plan harms, without helping.
Organized
labor and GLBT groups can cooperate to pass legislation.
Besides
necessary public services, Liberals should support reforms which prevent
corporate abuse.
Obama
Administration appears to ignore Howard Dean in spite of what they owe him.
Labor
Secretary Hilda Solis may be Obama’s best cabinet choice. She must be confirmed.
Democrats
may do well in 2010 as Republicans did in 1982, two years after Reagan’s
election.
State
and Local
Progress toward Meeting Washington State’s Major
Needs
Federal Funding for Health and Education
The passage of SCIFF will
provide health coverage for some of Washington’s children. Our stimulus-investment package will provide
funds for health and education. More
funding may be included in our 2010 budget.
Universal health care and coverage reform will greatly reduce the need
for state funding for health care. Such
additional federal funding will greatly reduce the necessity for state spending
on these two service areas, making it much easier to meet our needs without
increasing taxes.
Granted the same rights as
people, our corporations unduly influence us to reduce their taxes, escape
regulation and allow them to create externalities, which harm our environment,
workers, suppliers, consumers and others.
We may not be able to eliminate giving corporations the same rights as
people. But we can expect more regulations
and enforcement by the Democrats to protect us from corporate abuse.
Legislation
has been passed which grants local governments the right to institute public
campaign -financing for candidates for their offices. A house bill with 32 co-sponsors has been
filed to provide public campaign financing for judges.
Substitute
a Progressive Income Tax
Without
civic or political leadership or support from those labor, educational and tax
payer groups which would gain the most, no progress is occurring toward
substitution of a progressive income tax for some of our regressive sales,
excise and property taxes. Even our Tax
Fairness Coalition is unwilling publically promote or even mention an income
tax.
Replacing
Conservative Legislators
In
spite of Barack Obama’s and Christine Gregoire’s victories last November, we
were unable to replace any of our three Republican congress members and
Republicans gained a few seats in our state legislature. A Democratic candidate with campaign and
legislative experience will likely win our 8th congressional
district seat in 2010. If our economy
begins to recover well, it may even be possible to replace one or both of our
other Republican congress members.
Registering Hispanics in the Yakima Valley will help.
For
Democrats to win more state legislative seats, we need more assistance from our
Washington State Democrats, including:
· Greatly increase our identification of likely
Democratic voters from 50% and stimulate them to vote.
· Increase the number of likely Democratic voters on our
email list above 100,000 and communicate regularly with them concerning our
priorities, activities, opportunities for participation and candidates.
· Through dues and regular pledges, greatly increase our
funding, using much more to support legislative candidates.
· Challenge Republicans in state, county and municipal
positions who may become candidates for higher office, while grooming more
Democrats to run.
In Summary:
Except
for substituting an income tax, we have made or may make progress toward
meeting Washington State’s major needs.
Much of this progress is due to federal actions. We should continue to strongly support
President Obama and our Democratic members of congress.
Economic Opportunity
Institute’s Important Reports
Our Economic Opportunity
Institute (EOI) is a progressive public policy center, working on economic
security issues in Washington State. It
is dedicated to advancing new ideas to make Washington a better place to live,
work and do business. It pursues change through research, media outreach, public dialogue and
policy initiatives that shape public debate and promote educational
opportunity, modern work-life standards, retirement security, and a fair tax
system for working families.
Our
EOI has created and published numerous fact sheets and other reports,
concerning:
· Educational Opportunity: Early Learning, Strong Schools
· Work-Life Standards: Paid Family Leave, Minimum Wage, Paid
Sick Leave
· Retirement Security: Social Security, Voluntary
Accounts
· Shared Prosperity: Public Revenue and Spending, State
Economy
The
State of Working Washington 2008
(one of an annual series) describes:
· Our workforce – older, better educated and more
diverse than earlier
· Our working women – now half of our employment, but
segregated in different jobs than men, and earning less per hour and per month
than men
· Our household finances – stagnant incomes, increasing
income inequality and poverty, and inflated costs
· Our economy – our diversified and high tech economy
has not declined as much as the national average. [But in early 2009, the decline is increasing.]
Policies
to improve our work and family life include improving education, encouraging
more income equality, and creating flexible work conditions which enable
attention to family needs. A report Building an Economy that Works for Everyone
notes policies and programs that EOI has supported, including higher quality
early childhood education; assistance for labor force entrants; increased
health coverage; family friendly work policies; higher minimum wage; Washington
Voluntary Accounts, which enable employees to safely save for retirement; and a
fair progressive tax system, which brings in sufficient income while lowering
most people’s taxes.
A
Stimulus and Recovery Plan for Washington State recommends:
· Put money into the pockets of people who will immediately spend it
locally;
· Build the infrastructure of transportation and energy-efficient
technology our 21stcentury economy needs
· Educate and train the workforce for that economy
· Modernize workplace standards and benefits to serve today’s families and
businesses.
· Modernize and strengthen our state tax structure to better finance both
immediate and long term needs
Our
EOI does more than research and issuing reports, it actively works with other
organizations to promote needed reforms, through legislative and other
action. I strongly recommend that you
join learn from and support our Thinking
and Fighting EOI. Dave Thomas
Sightline Releases 2009 Cascadia Scorecard
The
2009 update of the Scorecard—a project launched by Sightline in 2004 to track seven
long-term trends critical to the region’s progress—spotlighted energy
as the region’s worst-performing trend. Overall, it found that the Northwest is
achieving modest progress toward goals of robust human health,
shared economic prosperity,
and a legacy of thriving nature.
Key findings from the 2009 Scorecard include:
·
Energy’s economic toll reaches record
high in 2008: Spending on fossil
fuels in the Northwest States quadrupled in just a decade, reaching a record
high in 2008 of $29.5 billion, including $16.6 billion in Washington, $9.4
billion in Oregon, and $3.6 billion in Idaho. The Scorecard also reported a
disappointing 12 percent increase in electricity consumption in homes and
businesses between 2003 and 2008.
·
Northwest drivers easing off
the gas: The good news about
energy is that northwesterners are using less gasoline per person than they have
since 1965. Idaho’s reductions have been especially notable—declining more than
one-fifth per person in a single decade. And despite a 15 percent increase in
population over the last decade, Cascadia used no more gasoline in 2008 than in
1998. But northwesterners still consume, on average, the energy equivalent of 2
gallons of gasoline per person per day in transportation fuels and
nonindustrial electricity—nearly double the Scorecard model, Germany.
·
BC residents are healthiest,
surpass goal: Of the seven
trends, the region performs best on health, as measured by lifespan, and
British Columbia continues to lead. Not only do BC residents live an average of
two years longer than residents of the Northwest states, but if BC were an
independent nation, it would have the second longest lifespan in the world,
after Japan.
·
Teen birthrates tick upward,
reversing long-term slide: Teen
birthrates rose in 2006 and again in 2007, a troubling trend that broke a
long-standing decline that had been underway since the 1990s. Birthrates as a
whole also rose, and the Northwest states still struggle with high rates of
births from unintended pregnancies.
·
Stalled economic progress: Prior to 2008, northwesterners enjoyed several years
of modest gains in economic security, with unemployment inching down and median
incomes inching upward. However, a steep rise in unemployment in late 2008 may
foretell rising poverty and falling middle-class incomes.
Senator Murray and Congressman Dicks Act to
Stimulate State’s Economy
Senator
Patty Murray (Chairwoman of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development
Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee) and Congressman Norm Dicks (Chair
man of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Subcommittee of the
Appropriations Committee) use their influence to include funds in our Stimulus-investment
Package for which Washington may qualify, including:
$5.5 billion for transportation such as our Seattle
viaduct and SR-520 bridge replacements
$5.5 billion for nuclear waste cleanup such as our
Hanford nuclear site
$3.2 billion in loans for the Bonneville Power
Administration
$1.5 billion for national park maintenance and
improvement such as our Olympic and Rainier parks
$60 million for ferries
In
addition, funds are included to assist state and local governments to maintain
and improve our physical and human infrastructure. And funds for Medicaid. And other funds for energy conservation and
to stimulate creation and implementation of non-carbon based energy
production. Let’s hope that funds will
similarly stimulate the economies of all of our states. For
more.
Governor Christine Gregoire’s Priorities
Governor Gregoire has been hard at work:
·
Passing
a responsible budget,
·
Protecting
current jobs and creating new ones
·
Helping
government do more with less through a series of reforms.
Here’s the Beef
What
our stimulus-investment package does for Washington State.
Read
press release concerning Sightline’s 2009 Cascadia Scorecard.
Report
describes how climate change will affect Washington. For more.
What’s what and who’s who in our 2009
legislative session.
Statewide
Poverty Action Network’s 2009 Legislative Agenda
King
County homelessness is increasing. Only
half as many houses as planned are being built.
State
Senator Adam Kline introduces bill to correct ‘3 strikes, you’re out’ law.
Climate
change is already weakening and killing our forests.
Policy
makers study land use changes necessary to helping Puget Sound waters.
Our
Olympic Peninsula is suffering from lack of wolves.
Our
Columbia Basin is suffering from toxic pollutants.
Judge
may close some Columbia River system dams to help preserve salmon spawning.
Monroe
and non-profit Qualco Energy Corp are converting wastewater treatment residue
into compost.
There are
many obstacles to small intensive organic farming.
Port
of Chelan seeks stimulus money to fund conversion of standard Prius hybrids to
plug-in hybrids.
Recession
increases payday lending concerns.
Nation and World
Current Job Losses Are
Greater than in Recent Recessions
We need to return to an Earn, Conserve and Invest economy from
our present Borrow, Consume and
Speculate economy. We must increase
our earnings, which have declined as a proportion of our production. We provide adequate credit, for qualified
borrowers, in the aftermath of collapsed credit used for excess consumption and
for speculation. We must provide
economic stimulus-investment measures to provide employment with good earnings
and investment to increase the efficiency of our economy. The following three commentaries address
these three topics: (1) earnings, (2) bailouts and (3) economic stimulus-investment.
Understanding Earnings for Dummies
The wage ratio is defined as the relationship of incomes from dependent work (employee
payment) to the national income and is an important indicator for the
functional income distribution, i.e. the distribution of the national income on
the factors of production "work" and "capital". It is
well known that earnings have not kept up with productivity gains since
1973. I have unsuccessfully spent
several hours web-browsing to find statistics necessary to detailing the
changes in the wage ratio from 1945 to the present. I did find the following relevant commentary.
Dean Baker’s
commentary The
Productivity to Paycheck Gap: What the Data Show shows that from
1948 to 1973, average annual productivity increased 2.72% while real wages
increased 2.23%. From 1973 to 2006,
average annual productivity increased 1.56 percent while real wages increased
0.02%
Baker stated that:
“After making all the appropriate adjustments, there is still a large gap
between the rate of usable productivity growth and the rate of growth of hourly
compensation for the typical worker. Over the period from 1973 to 2006, median
hourly compensation rose by 20.1 percent while usable productivity grew by 47.9
percent. This indicates that there was still a very substantial upward
redistribution from typical workers to profits and high paid workers.
This redistribution
was the result of a number of policies that were supposed to increase
productivity growth, such as the removal of trade barriers, the deregulation of
major industries (e.g. airlines, trucking, telecommunications), and less
union-friendly labor rules. However, usable productivity growth remained far
lower than in the early post-war period throughout the period from 1973 to 2006.
Even in the period following the productivity upturn in 1995 the rate of growth
of usable productivity was still 1.2 percentage points lower than in the early
post-war period.
While it is possible that
productivity growth in the years since 1973 would have been even slower without
these policy changes, they clearly have not succeeded in boosting productivity
growth back to rate for the years from 1947 to 1973. If the economy had
sustained the early post-war rate of usable productivity growth rate in the
years from 1973 to 2006, the level of usable productivity would be more than 80
percent higher today. This would have allowed for substantial increases in
wages and/or leisure.”
As Baker stated, instead of
going to workers, the productivity gains went to profits and high paid workers
(i.e. executives). Some of the profits
were distributed to stockholders. Others
went to service debts, often the result of real or threatened takeover
attempts. Ultimately many of these
undistributed or distributed profits ultimately were used for speculation. For
more. For
more.
Understanding Bailouts for Dummies
As I have studied bailouts,
the alternatives seem very complicated.
But I finally have come to realize that the underlying reality is fairly
simple. Driven by infectious greed,
almost all large financial companies speculated in mystery securities (with
underlying mortgages or other assets of unknown value). Based on the market value of these assets, most of these companies are now insolvent.
To bail out (make solvent)
these companies, our government must buy the mystery securities at more than
their market value or otherwise give money to them. If our
government does not bail them out, they will become bankrupt, their
stockholders wiped out and their assets sold at market value. If our
government does bail them out, our tax payers will take a beating. The unlikely exception is if we purchase the
mystery securities for more than they are worth, but manage them so that over
time, they become more valuable. For a succinct
analysis by Dean Baker. Read
about Tim Geithner’s BARF (Bad Assets Relief Fund).
So the question is, “Do we need these financial
companies to survive, at great expense to our government and ultimately our
taxpayers?” As we reduce our speculation and consumption,
we have less need to borrow. Can’t we
rely on local and regional banks and credit unions which are solvent (due to not
participating in speculation in mystery securities)? To provide the credit that we do need for
appropriate consumption and investment by qualified borrowers. Can’t our government loan money to them, to
augment their ability to loan at appropriate levels? For
more.
Unfortunately, many of the
stockholders that will be hurt by the collapse of large financial companies are
mutual and retirement funds, in which many of us have placed our savings. Driven by our desire to maximize returns, we
have unwittingly become speculators. Not
wanting to allow our speculative gains to disappear and to save their cronies,
our government has provided bailouts. As taxpayers, we don’t like bailouts. As speculators, we favor them. We will all be better off in the long run
without bailouts. If we bought or
refinanced houses our bought stocks directly or indirectly, we will be better
off in the short run with bailouts. The
major push for bailouts comes also from financial companies and their
stockholders who benefited from their leveraged speculation and then lost when
the bubble popped.
Note that our highly
leveraged speculative credit bubble is much like a Ponzi scheme. As earlier speculators made money, more
companies, funds and individuals joined.
Until finally there were no new entrants and the weakness of the whole
scheme was revealed. As with Madoff,
many of the victims were unaware that they were speculating. They were attracted by various enabling funds
which took their money and speculated with it.
Understanding Economic Stimulus-Investment Package
for Dummies
To stimulate the economy, we need people to quickly spend money to provide
demand for goods and services, such that providers will create more jobs. The poorer people are, the more likely they
are to spend any money they receive.
Excellent stimulants are increasing the minimum wage, the earned income
tax credit, unemployment payments, food stamp payments, and tax reductions for
low income persons. These add to our
safety net. They stimulate private
businesses to provide more jobs. They
may contribute some to making our economy more efficient through enhancing our
human resources (infrastructure).
Investing money in
shovel-ready infrastructure projects also quickly creates jobs, some public and
some private. In addition, repairing and
building new roads, bridges, dams, buildings, public transit, communications
and other infrastructure, conserving energy and creating and implementing
non-carbon based energy production make our economy more efficient. Assuming that these infrastructure projects
are helpful instead of make-work or even harmful.
Investment in slower to start
infrastructure projects doesn’t provide immediate stimulus. It would be justified by improving the
efficiency of our economy.
Providing funds to wealthy
people or companies that will not spend it is a waste of stimulus money. We must also be wary of incurring long term
obligations, which can’t be met in future economic downturns. Our regular budget should provide for
permanent increases in government spending on child, disabled and elder care,
education, and health. Note that while
government spending on health should go up, spending to buy private health
insurance should decline or be eliminated, for a net reduction in national
health spending. For more.
To obtain enough votes from
Republican Senators to pass the stimulus-investment, the stimulus-investment
package was modified from the House version to provide more home and auto
purchase tax credit stimulus and less investment in state, local and education
projects. For
a comparison. For more. Paul Krugman
has criticized the Senate version.
California Senator Barbara Boxer defended the compromises as necessary
to pass the bill. More
commentary.
Dean
Baker: How we changed from Earning to Borrowing and how to start back
Commercial Media Enable Consume and Speculate
Our
commercial media depend upon advertising which promotes consumption. They regard increasing housing prices as a
good thing, even when there is no reason for the appreciation except more
speculative buyers. They regard
increasing stock prices as a good thing, even when increasing P/E ratios
indicate a bubble is forming. Our
commercial media have fueled our infectious greed which attracted us to the
housing/credit Ponzi scheme.
Ocean Use Management
We
are often informed about land use management.
We create and implement measures to direct uses of land to provide economies,
improve our lifestyle and protect our environment. The same principles apply to ocean use
management. By restricting fishing and
other activities in some ocean areas, we provide havens for eco-systems which
enable fish and other wildlife to thrive.
For
more.
Here’s the Beef
Understanding how
economic bubbles occurred can help us prevent them.
82%
of job losses are affecting men.
We are already reducing our
Consumption. Our stimulus-investment
package will increase investment.
Grassroots
environmental acts should include green roofs and rain gardens.
Prices
fall for gasoline, commodities, vehicles, retail products. Increase for
services.
Nationalizing
insolvent banks is the only way we can afford to save parts of them.
Co-Housing
offers environmental and social benefits.
We
need to remove the building code obstacles to prefabricated housing.
Canadian
regulation saved their economy from collapse.
Canada thrives without leveraged speculation.
David Korten says: Don’t
Fix Wall Street. Fix Main Street. For more.
Removing investment
funding from stimulus-investment package will reduce employment gains.
Stimulus-investment
package will help provide clean water.
Stimulus-investment
package will help infrastructure which serves Native Americans.
$15,000
tax credit won’t help low income house buyers.
Climate
change is shifting North American bird habitat to the north. Affecting other
plants and animals.
United States and China
may cooperate to minimize global warming.
As Americans consume less,
Asia’s export strategy falters.
Durban dock workers ban
Israeli shipments to protest Gaza destruction.
Israel illegally used
American weapons in Gaza.
Israeli elections
demonstrate that most Israeli voters oppose Palestinian state for peace.
Our
Liberal Spirit
Changing Paradigms
Patricia O’Connell Killen’s and John de Beer’s 1994
book The Art of Theological Reflection
includes the following on pages 20=21:
“The process of making
meaning has a structure to it, though most of us move through the process
without noticing its structure. This is because our drive is to find meaning in
our lives. Asking how we do so is a different kind of activity.
Our work with theological
reflection groups led us to ask how human beings make meaning when they
reflect. In training sessions and theological reflection groups we observed a
pattern to the process by which people came to significant insights. Key
elements of this pattern were present in the process of reflection regardless
of the particular method we used. We call this pattern in the process of
reflection the “movement toward insight”.
The movement flows through
five parts: experience, feelings, images, insight, and action. Think of them as
related in a circular spiral: action, by leading to new experiences in our
lives, propels us back to experience. The movement is this:
·
When we
enter our experience, we encounter our feelings.
·
When we
pay attention to those feelings, images arise.
·
Considering
and questioning those images may spark insight.
·
Insight leads, if we are willing and ready, to action.
Becoming aware of this
movement in our lives can strengthen and refine our habit of reflection. It
puts you in touch with how, at times in our lives, we have come to significant
understandings that allowed us to choose more freely among options or that
strengthened or shifted our sense of who we are in relation to God, self, other
and the world.” See also. And also.
Recommended Books – See our list of books for liberals
David
Paul Kuhn, 2007, The Neglected
Voter. White Men and the Democratic
Dilemma
Mark
Stricherz, 2007, Why the Democrats Are
Blue. Secular Liberalism and the Decline
of the People’s Party
Our Basic Training contains a
commentary
on the factors which enabled the New Conservatives to increasingly control our
government from 1980 to 2006. These two
books describe one factor in more detail, the change from voting for Democrats
to Republicans by White men, who faced increasing competition from women and
Blacks and perceived the Democrats as favoring the latter. These books also consider other factors,
including Christian Conservative use of cultural issues; Republicans framing
themselves as optimistic forthright masculine persons and Democrats as gloomy,
ambivalent and equivocal; and Republicans attacking Democrats while Democrats
assumed a defensive posture. I prefer
Kuhn’s book.
Democrats won in 2006 and
2008, partly due to the declining proportion of White men among our
electorate. And to better framing and
playing offense against New Republican failures.
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