Declining Progressivity in US Taxes

You often hear the question--what has happened to this country?  Its a complex question with many culprits that have help whittle away the economic prosperity of working and middle class citizens in this county.  One change we've seen over the past three decades is our tax structure--its not exactly politically correct to talk about but its worth reflecting on recent history of it.

 

Linda Beale over at angry bear points out that we've seen Declining Progressivity in US Taxes :

 looking at income and taxes over the period from 1960 to 2004 is revealing. While our system remains progressive to some extent, the progressivity has declined significantly. This is primarily, they say, because of the cuts in the corporate tax and the estate tax--taxes that impact the very wealthiest more than others because of their high ownership of financial assets. Our concept of distributive justice has always demanded that we should determine the tax burden based on individuals' relative abilities to pay--that means that those with lots more should pay proportionately more of their income, since those with very little need all of their income just to meet daily needs, and those with considerable wealth won't even notice whether they have another few dollars or not.

The decades since Reagan took office have taken a huge toll on that sense of shared commitment. Fueled by a religious-like belief in the mathematically elegant but unrealistic assumptions of the "free market" economists from the Chicago School (see Yves Smith's book, Econned, for a good take-down of the freshwater economists), the GOP in Congress passed huge tax cuts for the wealthy accompanied by increasingly heavy payroll taxes for others at the same time that spending continued apace--in fact, Reagan, Bush1 and Bush2 all greatly increased the military budgets and the Bushes embarked on wars of choice that imposed significant budgetary demands. The wealthy have fought for laws that favor them--deregulation, zero capital gains taxation, lower corporate taxes, the ability to offshore businesses and assets freely, privatization of social security and other programs (that would put more dollars under direct control of investment bankers and insurers), and lowering of individual tax rates and provisions that phased out deductions for the wealthy (like the phase out of the itemized deduction, which was repealed under Bush, etc.).

 She points us to a recent paper that I have yet to read that you might want to check out: How Progressive is the U.S. Federal Tax? A Historical and International Perspective.

 

I think this is one of many contributing factors to why working and middle class families are feeling the squeeze---we've seen a structural change in how we are trying to fund (or not fund) government. 

 

Next time someone asks you what is going on in this country feel free to point them to the Republican give aways to the rich over the past three decades as one of the culprits...

 

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

How Progressive is the U.S. Federal Tax? A Historical and International

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How Progressive is the U.S. Federal Tax.pdf (198 KB)

Just came across a paper I need to read over at Angry Bear

 

Posted via email from Jim's Theory Blog Posts

All that matters is what they will defend in public...

Okay so to say I don't see eye to eye with Thomas Friedman would be an understatement (how'd the Iraq War, or unrestrained financial sector that caused the great recession work out for you?).

 

None the less one point I think he was dead on about in his column today:

 Rule No. 3: In the Middle East, what leaders tell you in private in English is irrelevant. All that matters is what they will defend in public in their own language.

One thing i've learned in the short time I've been involved in politics is that politico's will tend to spend time on the phone or face to face---in many ways this can make sense as the political winds can change and you don't want specific things that may get misinterpreted to cause problems getting things done; as getting things done is what politics is about.

 

But this lacks a paper trail.  Paper trails are good when you are trying to get complex issues done and you need to hold feet to the fire so to speak.  This has made me realize that I need to come up with my own list of rules--kind of a, what i've learned so far...

 

rule number one...   paper trails are good things.

 

 

Posted via email from Jim Nichols

Two Middle Georgia banks under increased oversight by regulators

Macon.Com:

Two banks in Middle Georgia have joined the growing ranks of stressed banks that fall under greater scrutiny of state and federal regulators.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. released Friday a list of orders of administrative enforcement actions taken against banks in February.

The Bank of Perry and Peoples State Bank in Jeffersonville each were issued a consent order, formerly called a cease and desist order.

Both banks signed the orders issued by the FDIC “without admitting or denying the charges of unsafe or unsound banking practices,” the documents state.

The strongest language was in the order for Peoples State Bank, which is part of Capitol Bancorp based in Lansing, Mich. — itself under a written agreement with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

The order states: “Within 30 days from the effective date of this order, the bank shall develop, adopt and implement a plan to sell itself or merge itself into an insured depository institution that is not controlled by Capitol Bancorp Limited, or otherwise recapitalize the bank so that the bank is no longer controlled by Capitol Bancorp Limited.”

The bank also must furnish written progress reports signed by the board of directors detailing its compliance with the order.

Read more: http://www.macon.com/2010/03/30/1076924/two-middle-georgia-banks-under.html#ixzz0jjotcEXl

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

Ahhh the money chase... Watch the politicians chase the money as the deadline approaches

Watch them crawl over themselves to raise the money---9 out to 10 elections are won by the candidate with the most money; might explain why our political system is broken!

 

 

Go send $10 to a candidate of your choice---if you don't have one what in the world have you been doing there is an election in 216 days you might want to get your act together...

 

IF you need a recommendation I'd say

 

Beth Farokhi or RJ Hadley are worthy of your support.*  Quality candidates deserve our gratitude and our support via money and volunteer time.

 

*candidates who are also in the GA Legislature are barred from raising money while they are in session

Posted via email from Jim Nichols

The Media, the American Public, and the war in Afghanistan

A reader sent this in to me and asked I pass it along. 

 

Pacified By Kathy Kelly

If the U.S. public looked long and hard into a mirror reflecting the civilian atrocities that have occurred in Afghanistan, over the past ten months, we would see ourselves as people who have collaborated with and paid for war crimes committed against innocent civilians who meant us no harm. 
 
Two reporters, Jerome Starkey (the Times UK), and David Lindorff, (Counterpunch), have persistently drawn attention to U.S. war crimes committed in Afghanistan. Makers of the film "Rethinking Afghanistan" have steadily provided updates about the suffering endured by Afghan civilians. Here is a short list of atrocities that have occurred in the months since General McChrystal assumed his post in Afghanistan.
 
December 26th, 2009:  US-led forces, (whether soldiers or "security contractors" (mercenaries) is still uncertain), raided a home in Kunar Province and pulled eight young men out of their beds, handcuffed them, and gunned them down execution-style.  The Pentagon initially reported that the victims had been running a bomb factory,  although distraught villagers were willing to swear that the victims, youngsters, aged 11 - 18, were just seven normal schoolboys and one shepherd boy.  Following courageous reporting by Jerome Starkey, the U.S. military carried out its own investigation and on February 24th, 2010, issued an apology, attesting the boys' innocence.
 
February 12, 2010:  U.S. and Afghan forces raided a home during a party and killed five people, including a local district attorney, a local police commander  two pregnant mothers and a teenaged girl engaged to be married.  Neither Commander Dawood, shot in the doorway of his home while pleading for calm waving his badge, nor the teenaged Gulalai, died immediately, but the gunmen refused to allow relatives to take them to the hospital. Instead, they forced them to wait for hours barefoot in the winter cold outside. 
 
Despite crowds of witnesses on the scene, the NATO report insisted that the two pregnant women at the party had been found bound and gagged, murdered by the male victims in an honor killing.  A March 16, 2010 U.N. report, following on further reporting by Starkey, exposed the deception, to meager American press attention.
 
Two weeks later: February 21st, 2010: A three-car convoy of Afghans was traveling to the market in Kandahar with plans to proceed from there to a hospital in Kabul where some of the party could be taken for much-needed medical treatment.  U.S. forces saw Afghans travelling together and launched an air-to-ground attack on the first car.  Women in the second car immediately jumped out waving their scarves, trying desperately to communicate that they were civilians.  The U.S. helicopter gunships continued firing on the now unshielded women. 21 people were killed and 13 were wounded.
 
There was press attention for this atrocity, and U.S. General Stanley McChrystal would issue a videotaped apology for his soldiers' tragic mistake.  Broad consensus among the press accepted this as a gracious gesture, with no consequences for the helicopter crew ever demanded or announced. 
 
Whether having that gunship in the country was a mistake - or a crime - was never raised as a question.
 
And who would want it raised?  Set amidst the horrors of an ongoing eight-year war, how many Americans think twice about these atrocities, hearing them on the news.
 
So I'm baffled to learn that in Germany, a western, relatively comfortable country, citizens raised a sustained protest when their leaders misled them regarding an atrocity that cost many dozens of civilian lives in Afghanistan....

 

----

 

...I felt uneasy and sad when I realized that my first response to this story was a feeling of curiosity as to how the public of another country could manage to raise such a furor over deaths of people in faraway Afghanistan.  How odd to have grown up wondering how anyone could ever have been an uninvolved bystander allowing Nazi atrocities to develop and to find myself, four decades later, puzzling over how German people or any country's citizenship could exercise so much control over their governance.
 
Today, in the US, attacks on civilians are frequently discussed in terms of the "war for hearts and minds."
 
Close to ten months ago, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters at a June 12, 2009 press conference in Brussels that General Stanley McChrystal "would work to minimize Afghan civilian casualties, a source of growing public anger within Afghanistan."
 
"Every civilian casualty -- however caused -- is a defeat for us," Gates continued, "and a setback for the Afghan government." 
 
On March 23rd, 2010, McChrystal was interviewed by  the Daily Telegraph. "Your security comes from the people," he said. "You don't need to be secured away from the people. You need to be secured by the people. So as you win their support, it's in their interests to secure you, …. This can mean patrolling without armored vehicles or even flak jackets. It means accepting greater short-term risk - and higher casualties - in the hope of winning a "battle of perceptions and perspectives" that will result in longer-term security."
 
And on March 2nd, 2010, he told Gail McCabe "What we're trying to do now is to increase their confidence in us and their confidence in their government.  But you can't do that through smoke and mirrors, you have to do that through real things you do - because they've been through thirty-one years of war now, they've seen so much, they're not going to be beguiled by a message."
 
We're obliged as Americans to ask ourselves whether we will be guided by a message such as McChrystal's or by evidence.  Americans have not been through thirty-one years of war, and we have managed to see very little of the consequences of decades of warmaking in Afghanistan.
 
According to a March 3, 2010 Save the Children report, "The world is ignoring the daily deaths of more than 850 Afghan children from treatable diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia, focusing on fighting the insurgency rather than providing humanitarian aid."  The report notes that a quarter of all children born in the country die before the age of five, while nearly 60 percent of children are malnourished and suffer physical or mental problems.  The UN Human Development Index in 2009 says that Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, second only to Niger in sub-Saharan Africa. 
 
The proposed US defense budget will cost the U.S. public two billion dollars per day.  President Obama's administration is seeking a 33 billion dollar supplemental to fund wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
Most U.S. people are aware of Taleban atrocities, and many may believe the U.S. troops are in Afghanistan to protect Afghan villagers from Taleban human rights abuses.  At least the mainstream news media in Germany and the UK will air stories of atrocities. The U.S. people are disadvantaged inasmuch as the media and the Pentagon attempt to pacify us, winning our hearts and minds to bankroll ongoing warfare and troop escalation in Afghanistan.  Yet it isn't very difficult to pacify U.S. people.  We're easily distracted from the war, and when we do note that an atrocity has happened, we seem more likely to respond with a shrug of dismay than with a sustained protest.

-----

...Some of us still let ourselves believe that the war can do some good in Afghanistan,  that our leaders' motives for escalating the war, however dominated by strategic economic concerns and geopolitical rivalries, still in some small part include the interests of the Afghan people.  

  

There are others who know where this war will lead and know that our leaders know, and have simply become too fatigued, too drained of frightened tears by this long decade of nightmare, to hold those leaders accountable anymore for moral choices. 

  

It's worthwhile to wonder, how did we become this pacified? 

  

But far more important is our collective effort to approach the mirror, to stay in front of it, unflinching, and see the consequences of our mistaken acquiescence to the tragic mistakes of war, and then work, work hard, to correct our mistakes and nonviolently resist collaboration with war crimes. 

  

As a reminder... If you ever find things of interest--no matter your political view; or if you just want to share your thoughts with me on something you read here and aren't interested in publicly by leaving a comment on the blog please do so.  One of the reasons I blog, and have been blogging for years, is I want to learn from others who may have insights or see things in a different light. 

 

Education is something one can't do in a vacuum and we all have an obligation to be educated voters.

 

 

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

What if Fox News actually wants mob violence?

Media Matters:

Conservative commentators were atwitter last week following news that Ann Coulter's speech at the University of Ottawa was canceled in the face of protests. Of course, Coulter has the right to speak her mind on campuses. But in announcing the cancellation, her conservative Canadian sponsor, pundit Ezra Levant, put the blame on out-of-control liberals who had allegedly made it unsafe for Coulter to speak, breathlessly telling reporters that "the police and the security have advised that it would be physically dangerous for Ann Coulter to proceed with this event and for others to come in" and stressing the presence of an "unruly mob" outside. Read More

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

The Media, the American Public, and the war in Afghanistan

A reader sent this in to me and asked I pass it along. 

 

Pacified By Kathy Kelly

If the U.S. public looked long and hard into a mirror reflecting the civilian atrocities that have occurred in Afghanistan, over the past ten months, we would see ourselves as people who have collaborated with and paid for war crimes committed against innocent civilians who meant us no harm. 
 
Two reporters, Jerome Starkey (the Times UK), and David Lindorff, (Counterpunch), have persistently drawn attention to U.S. war crimes committed in Afghanistan. Makers of the film "Rethinking Afghanistan" have steadily provided updates about the suffering endured by Afghan civilians. Here is a short list of atrocities that have occurred in the months since General McChrystal assumed his post in Afghanistan.
 
December 26th, 2009:  US-led forces, (whether soldiers or "security contractors" (mercenaries) is still uncertain), raided a home in Kunar Province and pulled eight young men out of their beds, handcuffed them, and gunned them down execution-style.  The Pentagon initially reported that the victims had been running a bomb factory,  although distraught villagers were willing to swear that the victims, youngsters, aged 11 - 18, were just seven normal schoolboys and one shepherd boy.  Following courageous reporting by Jerome Starkey, the U.S. military carried out its own investigation and on February 24th, 2010, issued an apology, attesting the boys' innocence.
 
February 12, 2010:  U.S. and Afghan forces raided a home during a party and killed five people, including a local district attorney, a local police commander  two pregnant mothers and a teenaged girl engaged to be married.  Neither Commander Dawood, shot in the doorway of his home while pleading for calm waving his badge, nor the teenaged Gulalai, died immediately, but the gunmen refused to allow relatives to take them to the hospital. Instead, they forced them to wait for hours barefoot in the winter cold outside. 
 
Despite crowds of witnesses on the scene, the NATO report insisted that the two pregnant women at the party had been found bound and gagged, murdered by the male victims in an honor killing.  A March 16, 2010 U.N. report, following on further reporting by Starkey, exposed the deception, to meager American press attention.
 
Two weeks later: February 21st, 2010: A three-car convoy of Afghans was traveling to the market in Kandahar with plans to proceed from there to a hospital in Kabul where some of the party could be taken for much-needed medical treatment.  U.S. forces saw Afghans travelling together and launched an air-to-ground attack on the first car.  Women in the second car immediately jumped out waving their scarves, trying desperately to communicate that they were civilians.  The U.S. helicopter gunships continued firing on the now unshielded women. 21 people were killed and 13 were wounded.
 
There was press attention for this atrocity, and U.S. General Stanley McChrystal would issue a videotaped apology for his soldiers' tragic mistake.  Broad consensus among the press accepted this as a gracious gesture, with no consequences for the helicopter crew ever demanded or announced. 
 
Whether having that gunship in the country was a mistake - or a crime - was never raised as a question.
 
And who would want it raised?  Set amidst the horrors of an ongoing eight-year war, how many Americans think twice about these atrocities, hearing them on the news.
 
So I'm baffled to learn that in Germany, a western, relatively comfortable country, citizens raised a sustained protest when their leaders misled them regarding an atrocity that cost many dozens of civilian lives in Afghanistan....

 

----

 

...I felt uneasy and sad when I realized that my first response to this story was a feeling of curiosity as to how the public of another country could manage to raise such a furor over deaths of people in faraway Afghanistan.  How odd to have grown up wondering how anyone could ever have been an uninvolved bystander allowing Nazi atrocities to develop and to find myself, four decades later, puzzling over how German people or any country's citizenship could exercise so much control over their governance.
 
Today, in the US, attacks on civilians are frequently discussed in terms of the "war for hearts and minds."
 
Close to ten months ago, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters at a June 12, 2009 press conference in Brussels that General Stanley McChrystal "would work to minimize Afghan civilian casualties, a source of growing public anger within Afghanistan."
 
"Every civilian casualty -- however caused -- is a defeat for us," Gates continued, "and a setback for the Afghan government." 
 
On March 23rd, 2010, McChrystal was interviewed by  the Daily Telegraph. "Your security comes from the people," he said. "You don't need to be secured away from the people. You need to be secured by the people. So as you win their support, it's in their interests to secure you, …. This can mean patrolling without armored vehicles or even flak jackets. It means accepting greater short-term risk - and higher casualties - in the hope of winning a "battle of perceptions and perspectives" that will result in longer-term security."
 
And on March 2nd, 2010, he told Gail McCabe "What we're trying to do now is to increase their confidence in us and their confidence in their government.  But you can't do that through smoke and mirrors, you have to do that through real things you do - because they've been through thirty-one years of war now, they've seen so much, they're not going to be beguiled by a message."
 
We're obliged as Americans to ask ourselves whether we will be guided by a message such as McChrystal's or by evidence.  Americans have not been through thirty-one years of war, and we have managed to see very little of the consequences of decades of warmaking in Afghanistan.
 
According to a March 3, 2010 Save the Children report, "The world is ignoring the daily deaths of more than 850 Afghan children from treatable diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia, focusing on fighting the insurgency rather than providing humanitarian aid."  The report notes that a quarter of all children born in the country die before the age of five, while nearly 60 percent of children are malnourished and suffer physical or mental problems.  The UN Human Development Index in 2009 says that Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, second only to Niger in sub-Saharan Africa. 
 
The proposed US defense budget will cost the U.S. public two billion dollars per day.  President Obama's administration is seeking a 33 billion dollar supplemental to fund wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
Most U.S. people are aware of Taleban atrocities, and many may believe the U.S. troops are in Afghanistan to protect Afghan villagers from Taleban human rights abuses.  At least the mainstream news media in Germany and the UK will air stories of atrocities. The U.S. people are disadvantaged inasmuch as the media and the Pentagon attempt to pacify us, winning our hearts and minds to bankroll ongoing warfare and troop escalation in Afghanistan.  Yet it isn't very difficult to pacify U.S. people.  We're easily distracted from the war, and when we do note that an atrocity has happened, we seem more likely to respond with a shrug of dismay than with a sustained protest.

-----

...Some of us still let ourselves believe that the war can do some good in Afghanistan,  that our leaders' motives for escalating the war, however dominated by strategic economic concerns and geopolitical rivalries, still in some small part include the interests of the Afghan people.  

  

There are others who know where this war will lead and know that our leaders know, and have simply become too fatigued, too drained of frightened tears by this long decade of nightmare, to hold those leaders accountable anymore for moral choices. 

  

It's worthwhile to wonder, how did we become this pacified? 

  

But far more important is our collective effort to approach the mirror, to stay in front of it, unflinching, and see the consequences of our mistaken acquiescence to the tragic mistakes of war, and then work, work hard, to correct our mistakes and nonviolently resist collaboration with war crimes. 

  

As a reminder... If you ever find things of interest--no matter your political view; or if you just want to share your thoughts with me on something you read here and aren't interested in publicly by leaving a comment on the blog please do so.  One of the reasons I blog, and have been blogging for years, is I want to learn from others who may have insights or see things in a different light. 

 

Education is something one can't do in a vacuum and we all have an obligation to be educated voters.

 

 

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

And for today's utterly meaningless statement...

So I see this blurb on my msn homepage...

Newsweek: While 80 percent of Americans say they believe in heaven, few people agree on what the afterlife will be like or how we get there.

Um... to keep this short and sweet i'll outsource to Daniel Dennet:

"If Lucy believes that Rock (Hudson) is to die for, and Desi believes that Rock (music) is to die for, they really don't agree on anything, do they?"

If 80% don't agree on what heaven is then how in the world can you claim they agree that there is one?  What are we talking about... nobody knows but we all agree we're talking about it! 

 

What an utterly useless statement.  I didn't take the time to read the article so it might be worth a read or it might now... I just caught one of my pet peeves

 

As Wittgenstein wisely noted: Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen. [Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.]

 

 

 

Posted via email from Jim's Theory Blog Posts

The very fact that there should have been such a violent debate simply on the fact that the poorest of Americans should not be left out in the streets without a cent to look after them ... is something astonishing

Kevin Drum:

From French President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking today at Columbia University:

Welcome to the club of states who don't turn their back on the sick and the poor....The very fact that there should have been such a violent debate simply on the fact that the poorest of Americans should not be left out in the streets without a cent to look after them ... is something astonishing to us.

Sarkozy was something of a darling of the right when he was first elected, thanks to his support of laissez-faire economics and general embrace of American values. But the financial collapse of 2008 turned him into something of a regulatory hawk, and now there's this. I'll bet the American right doesn't think much of him anymore.

 

All I have to say is... L'Amérique est un endroit très embarrassant d'expliquer à mes amis dans d'autres pays

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

The trucks won't load themselves...

Fresh coffee is lovely this morning...

 

Okay so I'm listening to Beethoven's 3rd this morning on my walk this morning... the moon is full... the sky is really big and the stars are so far away I can't quite comprehend how far... not a cloud in the sky and my mind keeps turning to this song...

 

Lucked out in finding a really good version for you when I got back from my walk...

 

 

I love youtube...

 

Posted via email from Jim Nichols

Economist Dean Baker: Banks Could Be Big Winners of President Obama’s Foreclosure Prevention Program

Watch it over at Democracy Now 

The Obama administration has announced changes to its signature foreclosure prevention program, Making Home Affordable. The initial foreclosure relief program unveiled one year ago was supposed to help up to four million struggling homeowners. So far fewer than 200,000 borrowers have been granted permanent loan modifications. Meanwhile, a record 2.8 million properties with mortgages received foreclosure notices last year, according to the real estate data company RealtyTrac. [includes rush transcript]

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

Ich hasse Edmund Husserl

My German is a bit rusty.  But I'm utterly disgusted by Husserl at this point.  I hate taking philosophy as a class because you are required to learn stuff that you find quite useless...  but then again maybe he grows on me when I figure out what he's saying...

Though quite frankly I have a feeling only a very very small number of people can claim to even have a clue as to what he's saying.

Posted via email from Jim's Theory Blog Posts

Might it be that simple?

Okay so here are maps that Republicans liked to show in 2004 to show that Bush and his policies ruled that day...

here it is county by county...

Only problem is that most people live in the cities... so the map actually looks like this...

and this...

8 years of Bush policy---which Republicans supported until it was so much of an obvious failure that they ran for the hills..."that wasn't what I meant..."--didn't cause the massive freakout fest we've seen with Obama. 

I was 19 for 2000 so I was looking for and hoping for freakout fest.  I was utterly shocked at the passivity of Democrats.  Its not like the Bush failures weren't predicted... if you followed my blog back in the day you might have caught some of the obvious points of contention... that turned out correct I might add.  Its not like Bush was radical in all the ways that people claim Obama--who is center right by the by--is radical.

Part of the problem with this Obama hysteria we see now is that a lot of Republicans didn't realize that a whole lot of people disagreed with Republicans for 8 years. So now Republican  perspectives on what the consensus acceptable policy was is skewed.  But then again Democrats didn't go on the sky is falling temper tantrums and scream fests and buy a bunch of guns... (okay okay aside from the normal left wingers who are always screaming... i'm talking about every day people who don't have blue hair or have get to see "old friends" they only see at every protest...)

What is it about the angry Republican base that doesn't allow them to stomach losing an election and freaking out about the sky falling?  Why are a shockingly large amount of Republicans more like a 19 year old kid than middle aged petite bourgeoisie that they actually are?

Maybe part of it can be explained by the fact that the media didn't use the most descriptive map during the election in 2000 and 2004?

Posted via email from Jim Nichols

Laughed so hard I spit out my coffee...

Will Wilkinson: For the “Last Dogma”

"It is true that this planet revolves around a star at the edge of the Milky Way. It is true that we humans are descended from apes. It is true that we really do know that, and a whole lot more."

Brad Delong:

 I am more skeptical. It certainly looks like we are jumped-up apes living on a planet revolving around a star at the edge of the Milky Way. But I'm just a jumped-up monkey with a brain that looks like it evolved to decide whether it's safe to leap to the next branch, and not to plumb the secrets of the universe. So what do I know?

Posted via email from Jim Nichols

Sitting at a traffic light this morning...

I couldn't help but feel utter rage and contempt for the Government infringing on my individual liberty.  I was so mad when I got home I had to go read a chapter Atlas Shrugged....

Posted via email from Jim Nichols

follow up on the "we need to..."

Why did we increase spending on photography by the by? 

Why not hook up with the GSU's photography department and outsource it to students learning the craft?

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

A topic we need to start dealing with...

I may be the only one talking about this but we as a state have to start coming up with a game plan to increase the pay of State Rep's/Sen...

When you pay your state rep's less than a McDonald's cashier you are likely to get... well I'll let you decide for yourselves

But I think we need to find ways to create incentive's more citizens to run for office...

We need to increase the quality, which means we need to increase the pay....

I for one think we have to get long term game plans for increasing gas taxes and increasing the pay of our Legislators are two topics no one will want to talk about but we should be...

And before anyone flips out, yes their are quality, top notch legislators on both sides of the aisle... but if you can't pick out one or two that have no business being there, or don't notice the number of seats that go uncontested---well you just aren't paying attention...

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

Lugwig Wittgenstein Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Found a Hypertext of the Ogden bilingual edition.

That made my day...

Posted via email from Jim's Theory Blog Posts

Calculated Risk on March Jobs Report

Aargh! Beware of reporting on the March Employment Report

The March report will be distorted by two factors: 1) any bounce back from the snow storms in February, and 2) the decennial Census hiring that picked up sharply in March.

These are real payroll jobs, but the Census hiring is temporary - and the Census jobs that are added in March, April and May will all be lost over the following 6+ months.

What we are interested in is the underlying trend of payroll job growth. To find that number we need to adjust for the Census jobs (although they are reported NSA), and we also need to adjust for the February snow storms. Later this year we will need to add the Census jobs back to find the trend.

The important point is 190,000 is probably a weak number for March - and probably not "setting the stage for a broadening of the expansion" - although we need to see the details.

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

Right vs. Left Libertarian

Came across a classic example of where left and right libertarians differ--I'll follow up on that. 

 

You might not know much about Libertarianism... good place to start

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

Thank you for recent subsidies to my blog...

I just want to thank readers who sent in donations to the blog this week.  I recently put up a tip-jar and am working towards enough to purchase a subscription to the Financial Times.  

 

If you are interested in helping to subsidize a college students education, contribute money that will go directly to paying for quality journalism, or read my blog--be it as a news aggregator or whatever reason--please consider throwing a few dollars my way.

You can find my paypal link at the top corner of my blog

Posted via email from Jim Nichols

"You need to riot": Right-wing uses violent rhetoric

A look back at the right-wing media's history of violent rhetoric

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

Morgan Page - Strange Condition (Album Version)

Posted via email from Jim's Culture Posts

The next test of the Obama administration?

How weak or strong financial regulations that get signed into law will be.

 

So far I'm not hopeful... on a positive note, at least I'm hopeful that I'm wrong...

 

Posted via email from Jim Nichols

“13 Bankers”: National Public Radio Interview

The Baseline Scenario:

 What happened in 2008-09 should not be allowed to happen again.  The nature of power in and around the financial sector has become so great – and so distorted – that it harms the rest of us.

I don’t think a majority of Americans understand how much influence financial institutions have in Washington, DC.  Banks used to answer to Washington.  They were once held accountable for their actions.  That is no longer is the case. 

We have not previously had such a concentrated banking system in the United States; it’s terrifying how much of our financial future is wrapped up in the big six.  We don’t need this level of concentration and we should recognize the dangers that it brings.  This view is not anti-finance – but we are very much against the way our biggest banks operate today, and we definitely (and in detail) oppose people who seek in any way to sustain the power of these organizations.

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

Bachmann: '100% Of Our Economy Was Private' Before September 2008

Talking Points Memo: 

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is continuing to denounce what she says is a pattern of government takeovers of the economy -- going so far as to say that the economy used to be totally private.

"And what we saw this Tuesday, once the president signed the health care bill at the 11th hour in the morning on Tuesday, that effected 51% government takeover of the private economy," Bachmann said on Wednesday, during an interview with North Dakota talk radio host Scott Hennen. "It is really quite sobering what has happened. From 100% of our economy was private prior to September of 2008, but as of Tuesday, the federal government has now taken ownership or control of 51% of the private economy."

Before September 2008 -- presumably in reference to the TARP bailout of Wall Street -- one hundred percent of the economy was private? Bachmann has previously made the tautological statement 100% of the "private economy" was private at a given time, but now she's starting to go even further.

Bachmann also accused the Democrats and the media of smearing the Tea Partiers who came to Washington for the health care vote last weekend, by fabricating claims of misbehavior. "The media wants you to believe that tea party patriots are toothless hillbillies," said Bachmann, who instead cast the tea partiers as intelligent, educated and professional people. "This is a very sophisticated crowd. And then these charges from Democrats that they were spit upon, that there were racial epithets -- there's no one who saw anything."

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

Obama's recent recess appointments...

Bring on the Recess Appointments

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Whose country is it?

Charles Blow: 

The far-right extremists have gone into conniptions.

The bullying, threats, and acts of violence following the passage of health care reform have been shocking, but they’re only the most recent manifestations of an increasing sense of desperation.

It’s an extension of a now-familiar theme: some version of “take our country back.” The problem is that the country romanticized by the far right hasn’t existed for some time, and its ability to deny that fact grows more dim every day. President Obama and what he represents has jolted extremists into the present and forced them to confront the future. And it scares them.

Even the optics must be irritating. A woman (Nancy Pelosi) pushed the health care bill through the House. The bill’s most visible and vocal proponents included a gay man (Barney Frank) and a Jew (Anthony Weiner). And the black man in the White House signed the bill into law. It’s enough to make a good old boy go crazy.

Hence their anger and frustration, which is playing out in ways large and small. There is the current spattering of threats and violence, but there also is the run on guns and the explosive growth of nefarious antigovernment and anti-immigrant groups. In fact, according to a report entitled “Rage on the Right: The Year in Hate and Extremism” recently released by the Southern Poverty Law Center, “nativist extremist” groups that confront and harass suspected immigrants have increased nearly 80 percent since President Obama took office, and antigovernment “patriot” groups more than tripled over that period.

Politically, this frustration is epitomized by the Tea Party movement. It may have some legitimate concerns (taxation, the role of government, etc.), but its message is lost in the madness. And now the anemic Republican establishment, covetous of the Tea Party’s passion, is moving to absorb it, not admonish it. Instead of jettisoning the radical language, rabid bigotry and rising violence, the Republicans justify it. (They don’t want to refute it as much as funnel it.)

There may be a short-term benefit in this strategy, but it’s a long-term loser.

A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday took a look at the Tea Party members and found them to be just as anachronistic to the direction of the country’s demographics as the Republican Party. For instance, they were disproportionately white, evangelical Christian and “less educated ... than the average Joe and Jane Six-Pack.” This at a time when the country is becoming more diverse (some demographers believe that 2010 could be the first year that most children born in the country will be nonwhite), less doctrinally dogmatic, and college enrollment is through the roof. The Tea Party, my friends, is not the future.

You may want “your country back,” but you can’t have it. That sound you hear is the relentless, irrepressible march of change. Welcome to America: The Remix.

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

Henry Citizen Newsletter -- edition number 163...

Download now or preview on posterous

NEWSLETTER-163.pdf (247 KB)

Local newsletter for Conservatives here in Henry County... worth a read even if you aren't one of the Tea Party/Palin crowd as its quite eye opening... and helps you get a feel for where others are coming from...

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

White House Said to Have Short List Ready for Justice Stevens' Slot

 National Law Journal:

Washington being Washington, even if lobbying is discouraged, meetings take place, well-connected people make well-placed comments, and advice is freely offered. The late New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan reportedly sealed the deal for Ginsburg's nomination in 1993 with a strong pitch to Clinton during a flight they shared.

In the current setting, it can't hurt, for example, that famed Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe, a fan of Kagan's, is ensconced in the Justice Department as an adviser to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. For Garland, it also can't hurt that two of his former clerks, Danielle Gray and Jonathan Kravis, are attorneys in the White House counsel's office. Gray plays a key role in screening judicial nominees.

Diane Wood has connections to Obama's Chicago allies, and, to a lesser degree, Obama himself, having taught with him at the University of Chicago Law School.

THE RIGHT REPLACEMENT

Still, there seems to be less chatter about the identity of the Stevens replacement than usual in gossipy Washington. "I'm not hearing a damn thing," said Nan Aron, who usually does. "It feels like Ginsburg followed by Breyer all over again." Aron is president of the liberal Alliance for Justice.

Some conservatives speculate that liberals will be unenthusiastic about the presumed front-runner, Elena Kagan. M. Edward Whelan III, a former Scalia clerk who heads the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said Kagan's fence-mending leadership of Harvard Law School has garnered for her "significant support among conservatives," and she has been "very guarded" in the stances she has taken throughout her career.

But Aron, asked if she would oppose Kagan, said no, adding, "This year we are going to decide who we are for, not who we are against."

Aron, a leading strategist in confirmation battles since Bork, did say that, "knowing this is the Stevens seat, we hope President Obama would appoint a very strong defender of individual rights, a strategic leader. This is much more important than Souter's seat." Aron also argued that "no matter who he puts up, Republicans will obstruct. So he should just appoint someone he really wants to be a fitting successor to Justice Stevens."

The White House's willingness to engage Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and the Court in the State of the Union address and afterwards on the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling may also affect Obama's pick.

O'Melveny & Myers appellate chief Walter Dellinger, the former acting solicitor general in the Clinton administration, said, "The decision [in Citizens United] to equate fully corporations and persons makes the 'just an umpire' model of judging seem somewhat less appealing." Dellinger was referring to Roberts' description at his 2005 confirmation hearing of the role of judges as like that of baseball umpires. "Life experience and judgment and understanding of how law affects people all look a lot more valuable in a judge after Citizens United," he added.

The word "empathy" will still be taboo as it was for Sotomayor last year, Dellinger said, but "The American public might now better understand that there is something to be said for a judge who senses that corporations do not have hearts and souls, do not revere grandparents, don't worry about their children, and do not have dreams for the future in the way that people do."

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

you saw what you wanted to see....

Dustin Hoffman with one of the most brilliant cinematic portrayals of God, or Human Consciousness, or whatever you want to call it....

 

 

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A Lobbying Blitz Shifts to Wall Street Reform

The corporate sector won the health care debate... now they are gearing up to win the financial reform debate...

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More Doctors Giving Up Private Practices... multiple layers to this one...

So yesterday when I caught the above the fold Chinese Leaders Divided on Whether to Let Currency Rise... I dug in and didn't get a chance to go back closely through the Business section.

 

Today as my mind strayed away from Husserl I picked up the paper---errr really my eye was caught by the semi-smiling middle aged doctor looking at me--and read an article on the shift away from private practice for Doctors.

 

NYT: 

Traditionally, American medicine has been largely a cottage industry. Most doctors cared for patients in small, privately owned clinics — sometimes in rooms adjoining their homes.

But an increasing share of young physicians, burdened by medical school debts and seeking regular hours, are deciding against opening private practices. Instead, they are accepting salaries at hospitals and health systems. And a growing number of older doctors — facing rising costs and fearing they will not be able to recruit junior partners — are selling their practices and moving into salaried jobs, too.

As recently as 2005, more than two-thirds of medical practices were physician-owned — a share that had been relatively constant for many years, the Medical Group Management Association says. But within three years, that share dropped below 50 percent, and analysts say the slide has continued.

For patients, the transformation in medicine is a mixed blessing. Ideally, bigger health care organizations can provide better, more coordinated care. But the intimacy of longstanding doctor-patient relationships may be going the way of the house call.

In a way this can be dissected in a number of different directions.  One you can point to a decline of the "trade"---that being a "Doctor" is no longer acceptable to most Doctors.  They want salaries, and manageable hours.  At the same time you could say that it is a turn back towards the "trade"--that doing the business end of medicine takes time and energy away from treating patients (if they wanted to manage a business they'd have gone to get their MBA not MD?).

 

I think its a good thing---people will frown that it ruins the doctor patient relationship that for most of us has not existed except in stories we hear when we visit the grandparents.  Most Doctors use bad medicine... I'll take a leap and say some of those "traditionalists" doctors who care more about the human side of medicine are more than likely also predisposed to not caring about the statistical data available on treatments that work.

 

Again I think that the art, or "trade" of being a Doctor is likely in decline.  But I don't think most people can ever master their trade anyways.  The more people realize clock in and clock out... that just means fewer people who will feign "expertise" as Doctors in order to gain egotistical or monetary value from that skill set being 100% of where they get their human worth.

 

I say, clock in and clock out.  Have a family, a book club, and a decent life... my doctor (errr my PA...) doesn't need to get their entire value and self worth from being a small business owner trying to make a profit.

 

I feel like I should go find you a quote from Nietzsche or Marx as both have sections of writing that come to mind.  I'll save it for another day....  As part of me disagree's with some of the things I just said/postulated...

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Psychologism

SEP: 

Many authors use the term ‘psychologism’ for what they perceive as the mistake of identifying non-psychological with psychological entities. For instance, philosophers who think that logical laws are not psychological laws would view it as psychologism to identify the two. Other authors use the term in a neutral descriptive or even in a positive sense. ‘Psychologism’ then refers (approvingly) to positions that apply psychological techniques to traditional philosophical problems (e.g. Ellis 1979, 1990).

‘Psychologism’ entered the English language as a translation of the German word ‘Psychologismus’, a term coined by the Hegelian Johann Eduard Erdmann in 1870 to critically characterize the philosophical position of Eduard Beneke (Erdmann 1870).

Although the term continues to be used today, criticisms and defenses of psychologism have mostly been absorbed into wider debates over the pros and cons of philosophical naturalism.

Posted via email from Jim's Theory Blog Posts

Online Resource...

Rhetorical and Cultural Studies: Critical Theory ... Collection of online texts by theorists such as Adorno, Baudrillard, Derrida, Eco, Foucault, and Debord.

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Tax, fee hikes carry the day on ‘Crossover Day'

AJC 

But while the Senate was a model of efficiency, rolling through most of its 33 bills by 6 p.m., the House was in something of a tailspin. House members began the day with 36 bills on their calendar and then added 34 more. By 11 p.m. they'd only dispensed with 31 -- and this after starting at 9 a.m. The House, too, was hampered by the fact that Speaker David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) was ill.

The first bill that passed the House would limit how many bears can be snared on a managed hunt. The bill also, among other things, would make it unlawful to export, farm or sell any freshwater turtle.

The more substantive stuff came after lunch, when the House voted to raise $169 million through a new hospital tax (or fee, depending on one's point of view) and an additional $96 million by increasing about 80 state user fees.

The debate on the two bills, HB 307 and HB 1055, respectively, led to a strange reversal of political stereotypes. Republican leaders argued for "revenue enhancements" and assiduously called them fees, not taxes. Democrats, meanwhile, and a few Republicans, slammed the measures as tax increases, although truthfully Democrats wanted to swap them for another tax increase, one on tobacco.

While debating the fees bill, House Appropriations Chairman Ben Harbin (R-Evans) said some of the fees hadn't been raised in decades, including a fee created in the 1950s in which counties are assessed 4 cents per forested acre for fire protection. Under the bill, that would be bumped up to 10 cents.

An airport fee for safety inspections, set in 1978, is $10. The inspections cost the state about $400. The new proposal calls for the fee to go up to $100 per runway, up to $400.

“These are things that should have been done years ago, but they weren’t," Harbin said.

He said the government has been basically subsidizing services for a small number of Georgians with the fees.

With the state searching for up to $1 billion in budget cuts and new sources of revenue, “we weren’t just looking under rocks, we were sifting through the sand,” Harbin said.

Rep. Richard Smith (R-Columbus), chairman of the House Budget and Fiscal Affairs Oversight Committee, said some of the fees haven’t changed in decades and don’t come close to covering the government’s costs for the services.

“This doesn’t fix the budget,” Smith said. “We’re just ensuring we can maintain a level of competent, efficient services.”

But Democrats lined up to call it what they said it is.

Rep. Virgil Fludd (D-Tyrone): “The bill is a tax increase. It can be called a fee, user fee, license fee, but in all honesty it is a tax."

The bill was amended at the last moment to gain the support of county governments, who were facing increased fees but receiving none of the increased revenue. In a compromise, a $50 fee on filings in State Court would go to the counties while the state would keep a new $100 fee on civil filings in Superior Court.

On the hospital tax bill, the House approved the move, 141-23, after first agreeing to exempt physician-owned surgical centers. That amendment lowered the revenue estimate by $6 million to $169 million.

But the debate wasn't as easy as the vote count. Rep. Mark Hatfield (R-Waycross) said he signed a pledge not to raise taxes and warned other lawmakers who also signed the pledge not to do so. Hatfield then took the unusual step of naming the names of many lawmakers who had signed the pledge. His doing so brought a gasp and a few boos from the House, where it's generally considered a no-no to name names.

"There's only one label you can apply to this rag of a bill," Hatfield said. "And that is a tax increase."

But, ultimately, the bill passed as lawmakers realized hospitals had chosen this method over less appetizing options such as the loss of sales tax exemptions for nonprofit hospitals and deep cuts to Medicaid provider payments.

"Are we going to vote on policy here or are we going to use it for politics in campaigns?" said House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island). "Your hospitals have asked you to allow them to do this."

Relatively speaking -- aside from at least two heavy debates -- Crossover Day in the Senate went smoothly. Every bill that came up for a vote passed, including a controversial abortion bill.

Senators debated for more than three hours on the bill that would make it a crime to persuade a woman to have an abortion, or to perform an abortion based on the race or gender of the child. With a 33-14 vote along party lines, it was the tightest tally of the day.

The Senate also approved bills to establish a needs-based component of the HOPE scholarship, to limit membership terms of the state Transportation Board, and to open up for potential bids to lure the Sports Hall of Fame and the Music Hall of Fame out of Macon.

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

From the worst health care system... to merely a bad one...

RomneyCare is a step in the right direction but its not a magic bullet.  Talking Heads--and their Republican lackeys-- who opposed health care reform wanted to continue the unsustainable health care system (killing tens of thousands and further adding to the deficit in the process) are trying to now reframe the health care debate in a way claim supporters of reform can be proven wrong.... 

 

sigh....

 

 

Brad Delong on the utterly obvious:

Can Gergen point to a single Democrat who thinks that RomneyCare "has magically solved all our healthcare problems"? I don't know one, or know of one. The most that people are saying is that we have moved from having by far the worst health care financing system in the OECD to a health care financing system that is merely bad by the standards of the OECD...

Dean Baker things we can now get serious about health care costs and turn towards free market solutions...

 

The Passage of Health Care Reform: Time to Talk Seriously About Health Care

The passage of President Obama’s health care reform will make a difference in the lives of tens of millions of people. The subsidies will make insurance affordable to millions of families who could not pay the unsubsidized rate. More importantly, by prohibiting insurers from discriminating against people with serious health conditions, those who are currently covered will have real insurance for the first time. People will no longer have to worry that a serious illness will cause them to lose their job and then their insurance.

This is real progress, but the bill does little to change the fact that health care in the United States is ridiculously expensive and, if current trends continue, will grow more unaffordable through time. While many issues on controlling costs are complicated, some are very simple. At the top of the list is bringing the price of drugs, medical equipment and medical supplies down to their competitive market price.

Under the current system, patent monopolies allow drug companies and the manufacturing of medical equipment and supplies to charge prices that are often several thousand percent above the free market price. In the case of prescription drugs, the vast majority of drugs could be sold profitably as generics for just a few dollars per prescription, if there were no patent protection. Instead these drugs can sell for hundreds of dollars or even thousands of dollars per prescription.

The huge gap between the patent-protected price and the market price leads to the sort of corruption predicted by economic theory. Pharmaceutical companies mislead doctors and the public about the effectiveness and safety of the drug. They give kickbacks and even bribes to doctors for prescribing their drugs in addition to spending vast sums on marketing. And they spend a fortune lobbying Congress to get their patent monopolies extended and strengthened.

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

I'm a terrible philosophy student...

Okay I'm reading Husserl for my class and making no head way.... litterally i've been reading and rereading for a while now.

 

I'm taking a break to read the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy excerpt on him to see if it helps put my reading into context...

Posted via email from Jim's Theory Blog Posts

economic liberty... freedom... and the opportunity to make a better life for yourself and your familiy...

Economic liberty entails individuals having the capacity to make personal, financial, and quality of life decisions own their own without having those desicions obstructed by the whims of the market.  Equitable pay is an example of this, as better pay helps empower individuals to take control of their own lives without being forced to rely on the charity of others or the safety net of government.

 

Collective bargaining allows for individuals--and not government or businesses--to increase the wages of workers and bring their pay in line with the true market value of their productive output.  "An honest days work for an honest days pay," as my Grandfather always used to say.

 

Unions are the ticket for individuals to gain control of their own lives... the true essence of liberty.

 

Not a day goes by that I don't thank god for my union which has provided me the opportunity to work towards a better life for my family, go back to school to get an education, and provided the opportunity I needed to work towards a better future for myself...

 

CEPR, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, has a new study that once again empirically proves unions provide a better life for workers--contrary to what talking head entertainers like Glen Beck, Ivory tower intellectuals, or corporate funded think tanks try tell you...

 

The Unions Advantage for Immigrant Workers

A new CEPR study finds that unionization substantially improves the pay and benefits of immigrant workers. The report demonstrates a 17 percent increase in wages for immigrant workers versus non-unionized immigrant workers and a much higher likelihood that immigrant workers will have health insurance benefits and a pension.

Don't believe the propaganda---unions improve the lives of working families just like you and me...

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

The evils of Socialism...

more on the evils of socialism---this example is for the ladies out there....

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Socialists Unite!

Groupthink anyone?

 

Frum Hell

Purged conservative think-tank denizen Bruce Bartlett empathizes with purged conservative think-tank denizen David Frum, and drops this interesting tidbit:

Since, [Frum] is no longer affiliated with AEI, I feel free to say publicly something he told me in private a few months ago. He asked if I had noticed any comments by AEI "scholars" on the subject of health care reform. I said no and he said that was because they had been ordered not to speak to the media because they agreed with too much of what Obama was trying to do.

Wow, socialists have infiltrated AEI too!

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Government's job is to protect and empower its citizens...

Some are angry and afraid that people have figured it out...

 

 

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Daniel Dennett and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

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Sparta

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Add RomneyCare to that list!

Comment I left over at local right-libertarian blogger Jason Pye's site in a health care thread:

Its important to remember that CBO does have a track record worth pointing to: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/opinion/26gabel.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all

 

But cost issues won't go away: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/uwe_reinhardt_we_are_not_off_t.html

 

Just like military spending... road construction... and other government obligations... we'll have to tweek the system as we go.

 

Wow... its nice to say that... health care for our fellow citizens is an obligation we owe each other.  Just like other obligations we have to deal with paying for add RomneyCare to that list!

 

Day two... still no sign of Armageddon...

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I'm with you on that one....

jonboinAR :

I don’t know a bloody thing, but I read Thoma, Baseline, Calc Risk, Naked Cap, Brad Setzer, Ritholz, Zero Hedge, DeLong, Krugman. I’m finally getting to where I can tell when some people don’t know what the hay they’re talking about, but, mostly, I still can’t.

I'd add Dean Bakers Beat the Press...

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The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory

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Herbert Marcuse on the Frankfurt School: Section 1

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Cultural Theory: Frankfurt School Critical Theory

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Yeah... Obama is left wing...

Only if you speak with talking heads from propaganda machines or the politically uneducated...

 

Michael Moore: Healthcare Bill “A Victory for Capitalism”

Defeat in Victory: the Democrat's Health Care Bill

 

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Special election date, 9th District U.S. House seat

From the inbox:

Upon Republican Rep. Nathan Deal's resignation (finally), the Governor has set the date for the Special Election to fill the unexpired term:

Tuesday, April 27 -- ONLY FIVE (5) WEEKS FROM NOW!

 

(There is no confirmation on qualifying dates for candidates or on the date for the run-off, if, as is likely, no one gets a majority of the vote.)

 

All candidates, Democratic and Republican, will be on a single ballot. There is only one announced Democratic candidate, Mike Freeman; and there are expected to be at least four Republicans, maybe more. (Nine Republicans currently are running.) With so many candidates, it is unlikely that any one will have a majority; so the candidates with the top two vote-counts will be in a run-off. The winner will take the House seat immediately.

 

The House seat still will be on the November ballot for a full two-year term to begin in January 2011.

********************

No other Democrat has announced. Candidates must pay $5,000 to qualify, so candidates who aren't serious about running are not likely.

 

 

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House

Employment and Economic Growth 2008 and 2009

Economic Snapshot for March 2010

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Putting RomneyCare in perspective

Its an older post but worth revisiting...

 

Because conservatives have found religion when it comes to deficits and health care spending...what if we had just nationalized our health care system?

The US Deficit--What if we Nationalized our health care system and created Single payer system?

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To expand on my US Deficit/Health Care Reform Thread...

My friends on the left support nationalizing the health care system and creating a single payer system like Canada or the UK.  

A position which Obama and Democrat leaders wrote off from the start--another of oh so many examples that show how absurd the claim that the Democratic leadership are controlled by the liberal wing of their party is!

Not to mention the left--Greens, socialists, et al who find the Democratic Parties center-right policies far too conservative.

Though I personally thought a reasonable compromise would be to create a strong public option its useful to look at our long term deficits in this scenario as well for good context.

Here's the US Deficit if health care costs aligned with the UK's health care system---which is very popular in the UK, as was noted earlier this year in the Financial Times: Health Attacks rile Britons.

 

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Clayton Public Transit May Cease Service Next Week

Atlanta Progressive News has a story on C-TRAN shutdown

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First the census now this?!?!?

I don't know about you but the massive infringement on individual liberty (known as ObamaCare) keeps me up at night....

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Upcoming Calender for the General Assembly Session

Tuesday, March 23 - recess
Wednesday & Thursday, March 24-25 (Days 29 & 30) - in session
Friday, March 26 - recess
Monday, March 29 (Day 31) - in session

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Letter to Your Congressperson...

A friend just sent me this... 

For those of you inclined and in need of a quick off-the-shelf retort to send to a law maker who has offended your sensibilities, I have created a template for you to work with and modify to your needs.  I know that a few of you out there were on the other side of this issue, so just ignore this.   Have fun with it.  Copy and Paste.

 

It is indeed an interesting blend of tragic comedy performed by the Republican Party during the health care reform debate, the vote in Congress, and now the aftermath of defeat.  It touches on the absurd of flawed logic, unsustainable holy acrimony, prevarications, a thwarted sense of values, and all wrapped up in the most vile of any contemptible civic behavior.  There is absolutely no sense of history in any of the actions.  It has been said in the past that stuff like this appears to an observer that one has shot a hole in one's foot.   You have set a new standard for tawdriness and despicable behavior in an elected official.  You have gone beyond the pale and blown off your legs.

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