When things are going bad

I'm worried about the future. I'm worried that my kids will live in a world that is much worse than it is now. We can all see the signs. Rich getting richer, poor getting poorer, the world is heating up. Prices are going up while wages stay stagnant. I don't know what to do about it. A lot of Baby Boomers don't seem to get this. It's a crying shame, really. Here we have one of the most privileged generations to ever walk the earth, and they are convinced that the best way forward is to tear everything down (except those things that benefit them directly). I know I'm doing my share of bashing the Boomers, but it's hard not to.

Here is one Boomer who gets it:



HUGE government investment in schools, roads, and other infrastructure were done while the Boomers were growing up. Never has the world seen such expansion and prosperity among so many. But that was mostly low-hanging fruit. After the Boomers came up through that system, they looked at how well their parents were doing and wanted a piece of that action. But somehow it has become acceptable in the past 30 years that selfishness leads to prosperity for all. That is so wrong. Yet the war on those who are less fortunate is gaining steam in its death throes. Jon Stewart points this out well:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
World of Class Warfare - Warren Buffett vs. Wealthy Conservatives
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And the second part of the segment here:

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World of Class Warfare - The Poor's Free Ride Is Over
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For a look an how bad income inequality is in this country, look at what Business Insider put together.

Last week, the President made a good speech. But why NOW?? Why wasn't he saying this 2 YEARS AGO!!! Like Jon Stewart said in last night's Daily Show, he's a TRANSFORMER!! "

Americans must give up the pipe dream that an inspirational leader can govern successfully, and embrace an America whose greatest resource is campaign-driven drivel." 

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Transformer
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We will only see things get better when we learn that selfishness is not the way forward.

Who likes Maternity leave?

Megyn Kelly was against Maternity Leave before she was for it. Thank you, Daily Show!

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Lactate Intolerance
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So Patty Murray is on the Super Congress

I'm trying to decide what to write to Patty Murray, one of my state's Senator's that is on the Super Congress.

I'll post my letter to her here.

Dear Senator Murray,

Congratulations on being named to the Super Congress. I am proud that a Senator from our state has been chosen to this group. As a constituent, I have some points I would like to make.

If gridlock in the SC happens, I will welcome the enormous Defense cuts that will occur as part of the trigger. We spend way too much on defense. I know this would hurt some of our citizens who work for Boeing here in the state, but so be it.

I agree that Medicare needs to be revamped, but the Republican proposals are simply cost shifting and not real solutions. Medicare should be able to negotiate with drug companies and import drugs from Canada. Fee for service is a broken and wasteful delivery model. I'm not sure what good raising the retirement age does. Protecting the current Medicare model for citizens 55 years or older is simply pandering and as a citizen that must pay taxes to support that current model while seeing my future benefits decline is unfair. We ALL must pay a price here, including senior citizens and baby boomers. Another way to save billions a year in Medicare is to strengthen it's fraud investigation branch. 60 minutes ran a story a couple years ago about how easy it is to rip off Medicare with stolen SS numbers, since Medicare must reimburse all claims within 30 days. The fraud enforcement office of Medicare is underfunded and understaffed. This kind of scenario is exactly the kind of fuel that is used to encourage distrust in Government. This has to stop.

Social Security can be fixed by simply lifting the current ceiling on wages. Right now, Social Security only taxes about 86% of all income. If you raise this to 90% as it used to be in the 80's, then Social Security is fine. Social Security did NOT cause our deficits.

Medicaid gets the short end of the stick on entitlements. It is bare bones already, and cutting it more with make things worse.

Revenues must go up. I am completely ok with having my taxes rise with the expiration of the Bush Tax cuts. My wife and I earned about $110k last year, so I'm not one of the $250k income people who are used as the floor of the expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts. We all need to chip in more to pay for the things that we demand of our government. The loopholes that the President mentioned during the debt limit talks should also be in play, as well as oil company tax breaks an the ability of hedge fund managers to only be taxed at 15%. A majority of Americans support higher taxes to pay the deficit. Not just Democrats or Republicans, but Americans. Please listen to our citizens.

Perhaps something that the SC can propose would be the elimination of campaign contributions to elected officials. ALL of our problems with pork and tax loopholes and lobbying and corruption are because of money in politics. Money is NOT free speech, and purging money from politics would eliminate all the other problems that we talk about, like Citizen's United, Campaign Finance Reform, etc. We should have public financing of elections, with a cap on how much each campaign can spend. I want you and all of your Congressional colleagues to stop begging for money and do you jobs of running the country.

The current London riots are a preview of what is to come to our shores unless something is done about the gross inequality that we have in this country.

Yes, we do have a long-term budget deficit, but our priority should be on putting our citizens back to work. I implore you to not let the Republican's talking points infect your discussions with the media and your fellow members of Congress. What is good for business is not always good for America; stop calling the rich 'job creators'; we are not in a country that is over taxed and over regulated; we are in a jobs crisis, not a debt crisis; the stimulus did work, but it was too small; knowing what we know now about how bad it was in 2008. The very markets that Republicans are telling us know best are FLOODING money into buying Treasuries irregardless of S&P's downgrade on our debt. It is so cheap for the US to borrow money right now. This proves that markets are not concerned about our deficit, but about the health of the world economy.

With President Obama seemingly incapable of standing up to Republicans (or not wanting to thinking that it hurts his chances of re-election), this means the task falls to you. Don't let us down.

And please keep your talks secret so that we can avoid the posturing that we saw all sides do during the debt ceiling debate.

I know that a lot of this is a wish list of liberal ideas, but the fact that we have this Super Congress for cutting seems to be a fulfillment of a wish of our right-leaning citizens who despise the welfare state, so why not have some liberal ideas in the mix?

Thank you for your Service,

Travis Fischer

Duh!

Ezra Klein has a post worth reading. What is sad about this is that people are JUST NOW realizing this. To assume that Republicans would compromise is...just nuts. It's not that Republicans are crazy, but crazy smart at playing the game. They are like a spoiled brat kid who knows that her parents won't let anything bad happen to her. So she can do whatever she wants and will get bailed out EVERY TIME. Even if she does get in some trouble, mom and dad are right there to help her. There is never a chance at giving her responsibility and letting her deal with the consequences.

Doom

Who says the US is still a great nation? I'm sorry, but this whole 'US needs to be #1 at everything' while turning a blind eye to the wealthy elite who own and control everything around here are deluding themselves. To still be shocked by the Democrats seemingly helplessness over Republicans hostage taking (yet Obama will still rake in a BILLION dollars in campaign contributions, with millions coming from WallStreet) just don't seem to get it. The system is rigged and we are really doomed. It's just a matter of time.

The Tragedy that is the Tea Party

Tea Party people are angry! Tea Party People hate government!

They are mad because their economic hopes from the last 30 years have been shattered. They want to turn to a third party, but the way our system is structured, they can't. So they go with what they think is the lesser of two evils and hope to bring change from within. But they don't understand how government works. They just don't like certain parts of it. So therefore ALL government is bad. Why they turned to Republican's is an odd choice. This party is mostly responsible for the degredation of our society and environment, the greed, the hypocrisy. Bohener wants a deal, but he wants to keep the Speakership more. The Tea Party has been co opted by the very people who are responsible for their anger. It's an impressive coup: Feed the electorate lies about regulation, taxes, trickle-down theory, individualism. When the whole thing crashes down the players responsible are made whole by taxpayers. The players then sweep into the front of the angry mob and lead them against the party that has the best chance to turn things around and fix things. This keeps the irresponsible players in the game while squeezing the last few drops of blood and treasure from the masses until the whole system collapses beyond repair. But by then, the big fish have left the pond and are living it up on yachts in Tahiti while the rest of us are left with the mess and the check. Of course, Obama is complicit in this. Why else would he NOT demand a pound of flesh from the banks in early 2009? Frank Rich's article about how Obama blew it puts the nail on the head. Instead, the Tea Party populism was grabbed by the likes of Sarah Palin and put to use for the very forces that brought about the recession.

Free Markets work, but the pain they cause isn't worth it for some areas. Free Markets work great for cell phones, cereal, and diapers. Not so good in health care, police work, water supply. But diapers and cell phones don't KILL YOU (ok, sometimes they do but not as often as polluted water supplies or rampant crime. Yet, we have rules for cell phones and diapers and cereal. Oh no! BIG GOVERNMENT. I can't think of one item that isn't completely free from some kind of rule. But I don't think that is bad. Why do some people think that?). Free Markets DID exist for our water supply before the EPA and Clean Water Act came into existence. Do you want to see rivers catch fire again from all the chemicals that get poured into them? Free Markets do the cleanup AFTER the fact. After customers DEMAND change in the face of mistakes. Free Markets are a tornado. Sometimes the tornado cleans our all the junk. Sometimes the tornado destroys your whole town. Regulation tries to prevent the tornado from every happening. In a lot of cases this is good. The Tea Party doesn't understand this. It's a balance. You can over regulate. The Tea Party has Bush II thinking: You are either with us, or the Terrorists. It's all black and white. Life isn't like that. Life isn't like TV. But that's a tough pill to swallow. Our culture doesn't like nuance. We've told ourselves for decades that nuance is for sissies. Big government is bad, but the Tea Party seems to be just fine with Big Corporations. It's about balance.

I think that there will be another Tea Party, but this one will be made up of 'liberal' voters who are disgusted with how corporations have take this country over. Call them the white collar 'Coffee Party'. This will come about once the next crash/recession/depression hits and the men behind the curtain are exposed for who they really are. But with how our infrastructure is crumbling, our education system breaking down, our planet becoming more hostile to human habitation, it may be too late to swing the pendulum back towards the center.

Why I might not vote for anyone for president in 2012

It's been a long while since my last post. Lots happening. This debt ceiling debate is really putting things into perspective. It's teaching me that: a) I don't think I will ever vote Republican ever again. b) Obama has got be the worst negotiator ever. David Frum does a great summation of what Obama has done wrong. You can't argue against it. Obama's last few press conferences have been showing his increasing frustration. Too little, too late. If he still thinks the Republicans will be adults he needs to leave office. These people are ASSHOLES, nothing more or less.

Then we get the sanctimonious David Brooks on the News Hour on Friday saying how Obama's 'tone' at the press conference is terrible and unproductive. How nice it must be to be David Brooks. A week and a half after he calls out the Republicans with the same 'tone' that Obama used today he says that Obama is not helping the situation. Please. Republicans are doing this because the KNOW what they are doing is unpopular. But this is their last chance to dismantle the welfare state, and the only way to make it happen is through a President who is a Democrat. If the Republicans lose big but manage to fatally wound SS and Medicare/Medicaid, it's worth it to them. They know how difficult it was to get these programs enacted in the first place. Destroy them now and even if the next Congress tries to reverse things, they will never be like they are today. If Republican's can't have their version of 'America', then no one can have any America.

Republicans are out of their minds. This nonsense that we can pay our interest on the debt, meet Social Security and Medicare payments, pay the troops, and do the other things that we want to do AND then cut wasteful spending without raising the ceiling are simply false. But Obama seems to think that meeting these loonies halfway is a good idea. I don't think so. The man is increasingly naive, and more and more disappointing. The Bush Tax cuts are terrible. They need to go. Sure, my taxes will go up. I want to have a country, so I gotta pay for it. Baby Boomers, you want all this crap, then PAY FOR IT. And let's not forget the real truth here: