27 Haziran 2012 Çarşamba

Tuesday Night Links

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1. Mobile phones are changing the world of retail – at a remarkable speed.  Mobile commerce represents a fundamental shift in consumer behavior and retailers must move quickly to exploit it.
2. Top 25 Biggest Product Flops of All Time (you can probably guess #1). 
3. Oil companies are giving millions of dollars in charitable contributions to local communities in North Dakota.

4. Tech Title IX?  Twitter, General Electric, Google, and eBay announce "Girls Who Code" initiative to address the gender imbalance in the IT industry.

5. North Dakota's robust and diverse energy sector could be model for the country: An energy policy that really works.

6. Ferry Systems Consider Switch to Liquid Natural Gas as the Price of Diesel Rises.  

Markets in Everything: Digital Hitchhiking App

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There's an interesting new ridesharing app available through Apple called SideCar, which connects drivers and passengers, kind of like a modern form of hitchhiking in the digital age:
"SideCar is a community-based, real-time ridesharing marketplace. Our proprietary technology, deployed via a user-friendly mobile app, instantly connects people with extra space in their cars to those who need to get from one place to another. Spontaneous carpools. SideCar is an easy, safe, reliable, and completely donation-based way to get from here to there. Not to mention fun!

SideCar is neither a taxi nor limo. It’s a ride-matching app that connects people who need rides with community drivers who can give them rides on the fly. All payments are completely voluntary and are handled via a cashless, donation-based system between smartphones."
Note: It's only available right now in San Francisco, with plans for expansion to other parts of the country.

HT: Fred Dent

N. Dakota Leads the Country in Q1 Income Growth

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From the BEA today: 

"State personal income growth accelerated to 0.8% in the first quarter of 2012, from 0.4% percent in the fourth quarter of 2011. Personal income rose in 47 of the 50 states, fell in Kansas and Mississippi, and was unchanged in Oklahoma. The percent change across states ranged from 2.3% in North Dakota to -0.3% in Mississippi."

MP: Once again, the energy-rich, economic miracle state of North Dakota led the country on a key economic measure, this time with the highest personal income growth in the January to March period of 2.3% (9.2% at an annual rate), almost three times the national average of 0.4%.  No. 1 North Dakota's income growth in Q1 was a full one-half percent above second place Nebraska, which had 1.8% income growth.   

Markets In Everything: Bone Marrow, Finally

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
MSNBC -- "Certain bone marrow donors could soon be compensated for their life-saving stem cells after federal officials declined to take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, allowing a lower court order to become law. At least one agency, MoreMarrowDonors.org, hopes to begin a pilot program offering up to $3,000 in scholarships, housing vouchers or charity donations -- but not cash -- in exchange for matching donations of marrow cells derived from blood. 
“This decision is a total game-changer,” said Jeff Rowes, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, which filed the lawsuit three years ago on behalf of cancer victims and others seeking bone marrow matches. “Any donor, any doctor, any patient across the country can use compensation in order to get bone marrow donors.” 
That may be the effect of the decision by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to forgo a high court review of a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that certain kinds of bone marrow donations are exempt from federal rules banning compensation. Under the ruling, donors who provide marrow cells through a process similar to blood donation, called peripheral blood stem cell apheresis, can be compensated because those cells are no longer regarded as organs or organ parts as defined in the National Organ Transplant Act.
About 10,000 people need bone marrow transplants each year, but only about half receive them. The Institute for Justice estimates that about 3,000 die waiting for matches."
See previous CD posts on legalizing bone marrow compensation here and here.  Here's a press release from the Institute for Justice. 

Real Estate Recovery Watch

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1. "Pending home sales bounced back in May, matching the highest level in the past two years, and are well above year-ago levels, according to the National Association of Realtors.  Both monthly and annual gains were seen in every region.
The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, rose 5.9 percent to 101.1 in May from 95.5 in April and is 13.3 percent above May 2011 when it was 89.2.  The data reflect contracts but not closings. The index also reached 101.1 in March, which is the highest level since April 2010 when buyers were rushing to beat the deadline for the home buyer tax credit."
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said longer term comparisons are more relevant.  “The housing market is clearly superior this year compared with the past four years.  The latest increase in home contract signings marks 13 consecutive months of year-over-year gains,” he said.  “Actual closings for existing-home sales have been notably higher since the beginning of the year and we’re on track to see a 9 to 10 percent improvement in total sales for 2012.”
2.  DQ News --"The median price paid for a home in the Phoenix area last month rose to a 41-month high, increasing on a year-over-year basis for the sixth month in a row. The region’s overall sales trended slightly higher as mid- to high-end activity jumped again, compensating for a sharp ongoing slide in sales of lower-cost homes, especially foreclosures. reported. 
In May, buyers paid a median $150,000 for all new and resale houses and condos sold in the Phoneix metro area. It was the highest median for any month since December 2008, when the median was $154,000. Last month’s median rose 5.6 percent from April and rose 25.0 percent from May 2011. The median's 25.0 percent year-over-year increase in May followed annual gains of 18.3 percent in April, 13.8 percent in March, and 7.5 percent in each of the prior three months."

25 Haziran 2012 Pazartesi

Are the Rich Worth a Damn?

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Edward Conard, the former director of Bain Capital and a contributor toMitt Romney's presidential campaign, believes that the rich should be idolizedlike gods, because they mass produced things such as paper clips and iPhones,making our lives easier. He actually advocates that "the wealthconcentrated at the top should be twice as large." (Seepart one of this post)

Actually, Edward Conard is wrong in that, it was only after the historyof banking did man learn how to profit from invention. Long before"capitalism" was invented to exploit man's innovation, through naturalhuman evolution we learned many things to make our lives easier. Can you imagineif "fire" were patented and someone could earn a royalty every time apack of matches were produced?

Since American companies first started outsourcing jobs for cheaper laboroverseas, they created a whole new generation of consumers in foreign countries.The CEOs said they had to send jobs abroad because of global competition -- thatbeing, European companies were also outsourcing jobs to Asia for cheaper labor(China wasn't outsourcing jobs).

CEOs and Republicans have been saying that over regulation, high taxes, andlabor unions have been to blame for the outsourcing of domestic jobs, jobs thatonce paid a "living wage". Boeing recently built a factory inSouth Carolina to escape the machinist union in Boeing's home state ofWashington.

Tech companies such as Microsoft and Apple have been taking full advantage ofcheap labor for years at the expense of American workers.

So has the banking and telecommunications industry, sending jobs to placeslike India.

The auto industry moved from Michigan to southern states, which are generallyanti-union and pay much lower wages. And "the Big 3", besides justcars, have been exporting factories all over the world. Since then, cities suchas Detroit, Pontiac, and Flint have gone broke and turned into slum cities. Justask Mitt Romney: LetDetroit Go Broke -- and Mister Romney is from the Detroit area, his fatherhaving worked in the auto industry.

But even with all this cost cutting in labor, the auto industry still neededa taxpayer bailout as the auto executives flew to Washington D.C. in theirprivate jets with their hands out.

In return, autoworkers saw their wages and benefits slashed. New employee'swages were reduced by half, from $28 a hour (a living middle-class wage) to $14a hour --- which is $29,120 a year before taxes --- just above the poverty wagefor a family of four. (50%of all Americans now earn less than $26,364 a year.)

Dan Akerson, the newest CEO of GM, complained that the company has lost a half-dozen candidates for management jobs because of salary restrictions for executives on companies getting TARP financing. But Mr. Akerson's compensation tripled in 2011 to $7.7 million.

By contrast, Ford's CEO Alan Mulally ranked #1 in auto CEOpay, with $29.5 million. Mulally's compensation was up 11% from 2010 and brings his cumulative take to $148.3 million since joining Ford six years ago. Chrysler's CEO Sergio Marchionne received no base salary, but he did receive shares worth $600,000 as a Chrysler director.

In 1972 Republic Textile moved to South Carolina to follow the movementof the textile industry from New England. Mike Diamond has been making a livingin anindustry that's been going-broke for about 50 years as he supplied usedtextile machinery to more than 40 countries, and helped play a central part inthe gradual movement of textile production from rich countries to poorer ones.Even within a single country, textile production gradually shifts to poorerregions — just as it has in the United States — usually in search of lowerlabor costs.

But the CEOs are always trying to convince the politicians and the generalpublic that Americans "lack the necessary skills" -- and that overregulation, high taxes, and labor unions are the cause of outsourcing.

But the truth is, it's always been mostly about cheaper labor elsewhere, andyou'll notice that "living wages" are never mentioned by them.American workers can't compete with poorer countries where corporations can pay$1 an hour for common unskilled labor. Our domestic engineers can't be expectedto work for $8 hour like they do in China. So the CEOs are lobbying to have VISArestrictions eased to allow the importation of cheaper labor (engineers, etc.)from other countries.

Since the 1930s, the American government has offered preferential treatmentto American producers in the awarding of federal contracts. If a domesticproducer offers the government a more expensive bid than a foreign producer, itcan still be awarded the contract under certain circumstances.

But more recent freetrade agreements have granted other nations the same negotiating status asdomestic firms. The Obama administration is currentlypushing to grant the several nations involved in the Trans-Pacific deal thesame privileged status.

A group of 68 House Democrats and one Republican sent a letter to PresidentBarack Obama urging him to reconsider an element of the controversial "freetrade agreement" currently being negotiated by the administration. Ifapproved in its current form, the pact would effectively ban "BuyAmerican" policies in government contracting.

Americans don't lack jobs skills and they aren't demanding too much. They justwant a job. A job that can cover the cost of food, electricity, and rent. ButAmerican CEOs would rather pay foreigners $1 an hour and lobby congress to havetheir personal and corporate taxes lowered, while cutting TANF, food stamps, andMedicaid for those who can no longer find a job earning enough to pay for food,electricity, and rent.

And then after the massive layoffs off 2008-09, the CEOs and Republicans(and Fox News) disparaged the unemployed and poor, and blamed them for being irresponsible whenthey lost their homes, and blamed them for living above their means, or accusedthem of being lazy (or lacking job skills), and deliberately got the media andthe general public (those with jobs) to turn the blame against the victims oftheir corporate strategy of manipulating their bottom line -- and at any cost tothe people of this country.

The New York Times reports: "With few places to turn, construction workers have colonized Craigslist as the cyberspace equivalent of the street corner or the Home Depot parking lot. That is because carpenters, bricklayers, roofers, painters, electricians, plumbers and carpet installers have largely been left out of the economic recovery. Builders are not hiring, homeowners are deferring renovations, and Republicans won't finance highway and bridge projects. Republican state-run governments are also laying off teachers in en masse, complaining that union "bosses" have demanded too much, just because teachers have been earning a middle-classwage.

Some say the economy is getting better because the top 1% has recouped its losses in the stock market since 2008-09; but for most working people, the economy has been stuck in the mud. The job gains doesn't take into account 8 million workers who were laid off during the recession, exhausted all their unemployment benefits, and are no longer being counted by the labor department. The ones that do find work are usually working for much less than before. Andthatdoesn't count the 6 million college and high school grads, who have no work history at all, and also aren't being counted in the unemployment rate, and now have to look to McDonalds and Wal-Mart for jobs paying $8 anhour.

I think the American people would have been better served with domestic jobs,and to hell with iPhones made in China. The rich and all the EdwardConards in this country may think they're worth a damn, but they just don't givea damn about this country...they're all "global" now, and we're theorphaned children, begging in the streets.

As the Obama administration indicated its readiness to enter into substantivediscussion with Congress with the goal of approving pending "free tradeagreements" with Colombia, Korea and Panama, a very wealthy and powerfulcoalition of business groups sent a letter to President Obama and Congressionalleaders in support of an "expanded trade adjustment" which includes assistancefor workers dislocated by international trade as part of thepackage.

While reading this letter (below), please notice all the nuances and vaguereferences (using words like "displaced" instead of laid-off orfired). Then think about the last 30 years: emerging markets, outsourced jobs,closed factories, high unemployment, urban decay, depressed wages, fewerbenefits, reduced worker's rights, union busting, corporate bailouts, collectivebargaining eliminated, corporate tax evasion, taxpayer-paid subsidies, recordprofits, record CEO salaries & bonuses, the Bush tax cuts, the past"free trade agreements" (jobs moved to Mexico, India, China, etc.),the shrinking middle-class, and then finally the Republican/corporate push tokill Medicare & Social Security for American workers when they can no longerwork. Then look at the list of signers (lobbyists) to this letter.

May 2, 2011

Dear Mr. President and Congressional Leadership:

We are writing to urge you to support Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA).

The Trade and American Competitiveness Coalition brings together U.S. business and agriculture enterprises who support domestic and international policies that will enhance U.S. competitiveness to promote economic growth and new jobs and prosperity for America's workers, farmers, consumers, communities and businesses. The Coalition reaffirms American business long standing support for TAA as a central part of America's overall trade agenda.

TAA is as vitally important today as it has been over the years. It helps American businesses get into exporting and is designed to give displaced workers the new skills and resources they need to re-enter the 21st century job market. Accordingly, in addition to moving on the pending trade agreements and trade preferences, we urge Congress and the Administration to find a way forward to ensure that the United States has in place an effective TAA program to support U.S. global economic engagement.

For almost fifty years, TAA has enjoyed bipartisan support as an essential part of American trade policy. In 1962, President Kennedy recognized the link between increased trade and economic growth: Increased economic activity resulting from increased trade can bring a dynamic new era of growth. He also recognized that a national policy to increase trade has costs as well as benefits, and that the country as a whole has a responsibility to share those costs:

[American] workers who suffer damage from increased foreign import competition [should] be assisted in their efforts to adjust to that competition. When consideration of national policy makes it desirable to avoid higher tariffs, those injured by that competition should not be required to bear the full brunt of the impact. Rather, the burden of economic adjustment should be borne in part by the Federal Government.

President Bush echoed this same position almost fifty years later when, in his last State of the Union Address in January 2008, he said: "Trade brings better jobs and better choices and better prices. Yet for some Americans, trade can mean losing a job, and the federal government has a responsibility to help. I ask Congress to reauthorize and reform trade adjustment assistance, so we can help these displaced workers learn new skills and find new jobs."

The Trade and American Competitiveness Coalition supports the work of the Administration and Congress to re-energize America's trade policy. In that effort, we urge the Administration and Congress to find a way forward to ensure that the United States has in place an effective TAA program, as part of America's overall trade agenda, which should also include passage of the three pending trade agreements and renewal of the key trade preference programs for eligible countries.

Signed and supported by:

U.S. Chamber of Commerce
American Farm Bureau Federation
Information Technology Industry Council (ITI)
National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)
Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA)
Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM)
Business Roundtable (BRT)
Coalition of Service Industries (CSI)
Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S.
Emergency Committee for American Trade (ECAT)
Fashion Accessories Shippers Association (FASA)
National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC)
National Retail Federation
Tech America
TechNet
Travel Goods Association (TGA)
U.S. Council for International Business
American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA)

I am the 'Beast' the Republicans want to 'Starve'

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"Starve the Beast" is the well-documented and radical 34-year-old plan that Mitt Romney and the Tea Party endorses for deliberately bankrupting America.

Forbes Magazine:"On July 14, 1978 the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on the Kemp-Roth tax bill, which would have cut all federal income tax rates by about one-third. A key witness was Alan Greenspan who was the first Republican to articulate what came to be called the 'starve the beast" theory'."

Alan Greenspan was also the most blamed for the financial crisis of 2008 and the Great Recession.

The GOP's plan is basically this:

  • Cut taxes on the rich,
  • which in turn would reduce government tax revenues,
  • and ultimately force cuts to programs for the poor and middle-class...programs the rich don't need (we are the "beasts" that the Republicans want to starve.)

Starving the beast is a fiscal-political strategy of American conservatives to cut taxes in order to deprive the government of revenue in a deliberate effort to create a fiscal budget "crisis" that is intended to force the federal government to reduce spending (rather than restore tax levels). The short and medium term effect of the strategy has increased United States public debt rather than reduced spending.

We saw this vividly played out last year when the Tea Party Republicans almost shut down the government, which resulted in having the United States' credit rating reduced.

The term "beast" refers to the government (the people) and the programs it funds, particularly social programs such as TANF, Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, Pell grants and public schools; and does not usually refer to spending on military, law enforcement or prisons.

You heard all the Republicans presidential candidates rant and rave about the social programs during the debates.

"Starving the beast" was the premise behind the conservative fiscal strategy, but the growth of spending and deficits (even in the face of large tax cuts) has worn down some of its former supporters, according to syndicated columnist and former U.S. Treasury official Bruce Bartlett, in an article analyzing the origins and development of the Republican fiscal strategy. “Starve the Beast” - Origins and Development of a Budgetary Metaphor (PDF)

The first rule of Starving the Beast? Don't mention it. This is not something you can speak of in polite conversation, as an Andrew Sullivan reader pointed out:

"This is the culmination of about a thirty year Republican strategy called “starve the beast,” by which Republicans have worked to reduce taxes and increase the national deficit as large as possible – all to create the supposed “deficit crisis” that we now face and to use that crisis to eliminate programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and a slew of other programs (EPA, SEC, Planned Parenthood, collective bargaining, etc.) that the Republican class has never been able to eliminate through the democratic process. This “starve the beast” Republican strategy has been openly acknowledged for years and I know you are well aware of it. And the Ryan “budget plan” is transparently an attempt to cash in on this long-standing political agenda."

Rolling Stone has a good article: How the GOP became the Party of the Rich - "Ronald Reagan put his tax plan to work on behalf of the rich in a move that GOP Majority Leader Howard Baker called a "riverboat gamble". Reagan sold the country on an "across-the-board" tax cut that brought the top tax rate on the rich down to 50 percent. According to supply-side economists, the wealthy would use their tax break to spur investment, and the economy would boom.

Bruce Bartlett recalls, "We started talking about just cutting taxes and saying, 'Screw the deficit.' We had this idea that if you lowered revenues, the concern about the deficit would be channeled into spending cuts."

It was the birth of what is now known as "Starve the Beast" – a conscious strategy by conservatives to force cuts in federal spending by deliberately bankrupting the country. As conceived by the right-wing intellectual Irving Kristol in 1980, the plan called for Republicans to create a "fiscal problem" by slashing taxes – and then foist the pain of re-imposing fiscal discipline onto future Democratic administrations who, in Kristol's words, would be forced to "tidy up afterward."

Americans for Tax Reform, headed by Grover Norquist, used an instrument for enforcement – an anti-tax pledge signed by GOP lawmakers – which quickly evolved into a powerful weapon designed to shift the tax burden away from the rich.

Newt Gingrich and the anti-tax revolutionaries who seized control of Congress in 1994 moved to eliminate taxes on investment income and to abolish the inheritance tax. Under the final plan they enacted, capital gains taxes were sliced to 20 percent (now 15 percent with the Bush tax cuts) -- a tax cut that went directly to the top one percent of income earners.

"The capital gains tax cut alone gave the top 400 taxpayers* a bigger tax cut than all the Bush tax cuts combined," says David Cay Johnston, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich – and Cheat Everybody Else.

* See the Forbes 400 List

From Occupy America in an article: "Where the Right Went Wrong"- "Bill Moyers talked with conservative economist Bruce Bartlett, who wrote the bible for the Reagan Revolution, and worked on domestic policy for the Reagan White House, and who also served as a top treasury official under the first President Bush. Now he's a heretic in the conservative circles where he once was a star. Bartlett argues that right-wing tax policies -- pushed in part by Grover Norquist and Tea Party activists -- are destroying the country's economic foundation."

"Starve the Beast," is now being championed by Irving Kristol's son, Bill Kristol (a regular on Fox News) and Grover Norquist...cutting taxes and placing funds into positions where they will have little stimulative effect, which will in fact grow the deficit or remove the dollars from positions in which they could be used for social programs or other methods of helping the poor, thereby forcing the shrinkage of government by aiding the oligarchs." - An Open Letter to Bill O’Brien – Is That Round Table Still Open?, January 18, 2012

From a doctoral dissertation entitled "Starving the Beast: Using tax policy and governmental budgeting to drive social policy," by Amy M. Hageman, Univ. Central Florida 2007:

"Strauss viewed liberalism as the crisis of modernity and felt strongly that the natural right of the gentlemen (e.g. the elite) must be protected to allow the gentlemen to rule as an aristocracy within a democratic society. Strauss also saw strong national unity as the key to a successful state. Neo-conservative theory also disdains welfarism and holds that governmental involvement in social problems should be limited, but that strong national security and defense are essential for a unified country. These tenets are fundamental to understanding why contemporary tax policy makers are focused on tax cuts that realign the equity of the tax system to favor the protection of the elite’s wealth and realign federal budgets to shift spending away from social programs that might benefit society’s vulgar."

Grover Norquist has always said of government, "I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

Everyone, regardless of income level, can help starve the beast by drastically cutting consumption. This hits both Federal and State tax collection. By cutting consumption – or consuming ’smartly’, we actually do three things – save money, avoid paying both direct and indirect taxes, and create a downstream loss in revenue, which results in lower collection of corporate income taxes (and a loss of jobs, which is also a loss in government revenue and an increase in government social program spending --- and one step closer to ‘breaking’ the system).

The top 1 percent of American earners receive almost a fifth of the country’s income, according to Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, two economists who study inequality. According to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by the Economic Policy Institute the top 1 percent of Americans, by net worth, hold about a third of American wealth.

Compensation for chief executives at American companies grew 15 percent in 2011 after a 28 percent rise in 2010, part of a larger trend that has seen CEO pay skyrocket over the last three decades. Workers, on the other hand, have been left behind (especially those in the bottom 50% of the workforce.)

Despite previous claims that the Bush tax cuts would raise revenue, we now know the 2001 tax cuts was an attempt to starve the beast at a cost of approximately of $1.35 trillion over 10 years while the 2003 tax cuts cost another $350 billion over 10 years. We also know that the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was pegged at $1.26 trillion through 2011 and the un-funded Medicare Part D prescription drug program stands at $272 billion so far.

In 2010 142.8 million Americans filed tax returns. The year before about 59 million tax returns were filed with either positive or negative AGI that used exemptions, deductions and tax credits to completely wipe out their federal income tax liability. Read: Who Pays Taxes and Who Receives Government Spending?(PDF)

Last year 50% of all U.S. workers earned less than $26,364 a year. This is the bottom 50% that the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundations says only pays 3% of all the [federal income] taxes. These are the people the Republicans say "should put more skin in the game".

But because half of our population makes such low wages, the bulk (if not all) of their earnings are spent on basic necessities in consumption, which is also taxed in other ways. The Republicans want to impose a VAT tax that would disproportionately tax low income people more, who are already suffering financial hardship.

Those are the people -- those that need food stamps to eat -- the "beasts" that the Republicans want to "starve".

Reuters: “Starving the beast” is a favorite conservative strategy for forcing cuts in federal spending. The idea is to deprive the government of revenue in order to force spending cuts – and resistance to new taxes was a central feature of the Super Committee deliberations in Washington.

In fiscal 2011, Congress provided the Social Security Administration with about $1 billion less than requested by President Obama. Those cuts forced the agency to make cuts that beneficiaries have noticed. It suspended mailing of the annual statement of benefits, and it shelved plans to open new hearing offices to handle the backlog of disability claims, which has soared during the recession.

Europe is now in a recession. There was no debt crisis in Britain but it's now experiencing its first double-dip recession since the 1970s. Robert Reich says they can blame it on their austerity economics --"the bizarre view that economic slowdowns are the products of excessive debt, so government should cut spending. Germany's insistence on cutting public budgets has led Europe into a recession swamp. The danger here for the United States is clear. The Republicans have been demanding and getting spending cuts at the worst possible time -- and ignoring the economic and social consequences."

More people (with natural population growth) makes for "bigger government", and that's why taxation is necessary for domestic spending - which is needed to maintain programs like Social Security and Medicare, while maintaining what's necessary for the defense of the country and our infrastructure. The Republican's policies are putting this country into a state of decay while just enriching a few at the very top.

No one is immune from catastrophe. Most of us get old. Anyone can lose their job and health insurance. Not everyone has the physical ability to work until the day they drop dead, especially if they have a labor intensive job. Anybody can get seriously ill or become disabled. Many won't be considered for employment after they reach a certain age. Most American voters, even Republican ones, might need assistance at some time in their life. Only 1% of the population need not worry about social safety nets, most of us are just trying to get by. It's a shame that so many people vote against their own best interests, and believe the Republican propaganda, when it's common knowledge the GOP is the party of the rich.

Mitt Romney "loves" Paul Ryan's budget plan, the Social Darwinismconcept of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest to justify social policies which make no distinction between those able to support themselves and those unable to support themselves.

They squeezed all they could out of us for food, gas, housing and electricity. Then they outsourced the jobs overseas. The jobs that are now available don't pay a "living wage". And now they want to cut our very last lifeline for existence.

The American people (and maybe you) -- are the "beasts" the Republicans want to "starve".

Editor's Note: After working for almost four decades, 56-year-old Bud Meyers was laid off in 2008 and has now been unemployed for the past 3½ years. He is currently surviving on food stamps while pursuing a Social Security disability claim... a "beast" the Republicans want to "starve".

Mitt Romney's Mormonism & Gay Marriage

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"You might be able to askMitt anything, but it doesn't mean you'll ever get a 'straight' answer fromhim." - Bud Meyers, 2012

Purpose of Marriage / Mormonism/ Romney Family History / Today'sArgument



Mitt Romney recently said:

"Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman. I believe that marriage has been definedthe same way for literally thousands of years by virtually every civilization in history."(Editor's Note: If Romney was being truthful, shouldn't he have said"Between one man and three women"?)

Most marriages in earlier Western societies were often arranged. Moreover, the wife usually had much fewer rights than her husband and was expected to be subservient to him. To a considerable extent, marriage was also an economic arrangement. There was little room for romantic love, and even simple affection was not considered essential. Procreation and cooperation were thewife's main marital duties.

On the other hand, Sparta, while encouraging sexual relationships between men, nevertheless insisted on their marrying and producingchildren to populate their military.

Marriage was usually treated as a practical matter. A father arranged the most advantageous marriage for his son. As a rule, the bridegroom was in his thirties and the bride was a teenager.

In addition to this disparity in ages, there also existed an inequality in education and political rights. Women were considered inferior to men and remained confined to the home. Their main function as wives was to produce children and to manage the household while their husbandswere away tending to public affairs and prostitutes (like many do today).

For their erotic needs, men often turned to prostitutes and concubines. As Demosthenes, the orator, explained it: "We have prostitutes for our pleasure, concubines for our health, and wives to bear us lawful offspring."

Many men also cultivated intense emotional and sexual relationships with male adolescents (paiderastia). The legal inequality of the sexes was further reflected in the divorce regulations. It was always easier for a husband to divorce his wife than vice versa. However, since a divorced woman could take her dowry back with her, men normally asked for a divorce only in cases of female adultery and infertility.(ReadMore...)

To better understand Mitt Romney (and maybe his own "arranged" marriage), let's explore his core beliefs and whatguides him through life (excluding his assault on that young gay man while hewas a senior in high school.)

The religion of Mormonism was invented by a (Vermont-born) New Yorker named Joseph Smith Jr.in 1830. That was only 182 years ago, almost two millennia after Christ, and 40years before my great-grandfather immigrated to the U.S. from Germany.

According to Joe Smith, beginning in the early 1820s he had visions. In one suchvision an angel directed him to a buried book of goldenplates, inscribed with a Christian history of ancient American civilizations.(I'm just guessing but, this may be where the History Channel got their idea forthe series Ancient Aliens).

17-year-old Joseph Smith said he had found these "golden plates" on September 22, 1823 at a hill near his home inManchester, New York after an angel directed him to a buried stone box.

These plates were described as weighing from 30 to 60 pounds, being golden or brassy in color, and being composed of thin metallicpages, engraved on both sides and bound with one or more rings. Smith named these golden plates the "Plates of Nephi".

(Pictured below, top left) A full-scale model of Joe Smith's golden plates based onhis own description (along with some other inventions of the day).



Smith said at first, the angel had prevented him from taking the plates, but instructed him to return to the same location the following year.

Four years later in September 1827, on his fourth annual attempt to retrieve the plates, Joseph Smith returned home with a heavyobject wrapped in a frock, which he then put in a box. Though he allowed others to heft the box, he said that the angel had forbiddenhim to show the plates to anyone until they had been translated from their original "reformed Egyptian" language.(He said the angel had directed him to translate them into English, but didn't say AmericanEnglish, Old English, Middle English, or British English.)

Joe Smith dictated a translation using a seer stone in the bottom of a hat, which he placed over his face to view the words written within the stone. It was translated at an average rate of eight or more of its printed pages a day.

Smith published the translation in 1830 as the Book of Mormon.

Scholarly reference works on languages do not, however, acknowledge the existence of either a "reformed Egyptian" language or"reformed Egyptian" script as it has been described in Mormon belief. No archaeological, linguistic, or other evidence of the use ofEgyptian writing in ancient America has every been discovered.

According to Joe Smith's Book ofMormon, a Nephite (e.g. the "Plates of Nephi") is a member of one of the four main groupsof ancient settlers to America in 600 B.C. The other early settlers described in the Book of Mormon include the Lamanites, Jareditesand Mulekites.

* A Choclodite is a slang term that is often offensive and refers to an African American. A Hermaphrodite is an organism that has reproductive organs normally associated with both male and female sexes. The suffix "ite" is derived from the Greek word lithos (from its adjectival form -ites), meaning rock or stone. The first Greek-speaking tribes, known later as Mycenaeans, are generally thought to have arrived in the Greek mainland between 1900 B.C. and 1600 B.C.

Some Mormon scholars believe that the forebears of the Nephites settled somewhere in present-day Central Americaafter departing Jerusalem. (Notto be confused with the Neolithic societies who lived along the Nile River from 3600 BC to about 3100 BC.)

The Book of Mormon is the sacred text of the Latter Day Saint movementwho believes contains the writings of ancient prophets who lived in the Americasfrom approximately 2200 BC to AD 421.

Radiocarbon tests of carbonized plant remains where artifacts were unearthed along the Savannah River in South Carolina indicate that the sediments containing these artifacts are at least 50,000 years old, meaning that humans inhabited North American long before the last iceage.

The story about the ancient prophets begins with a family that leaves Jerusalem, just before the Babyloniancaptivity. They constructed a ship* and sailed to a "promised land" in the Western Hemisphere, where this civilization was supposed to have existedfrom around 600 BC and ending in 421 A.D.

During this time in history, in 525 B.C. the Persians conquered Egypt and Hieroglyphs (hieroglyphics) continued to be used under Persian rule. No"reformed Egyptian language" is ever referred to by historians.

* The first known vessels date back to the Neolithic Period, about 10,000 years ago, but could not be described as ships. By about 2000 BC, the Minoan civilization in Crete had evolved into a naval power exercising effective control of the sea in the eastern Mediterranean.

According to Plato, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC.

The Phoenicians were the Mediterranean maritime trading culture from 1550 BC to 300 BC. and then the Greeks gradually mastered navigation at sea, and were also exploring the Mediterranean.

The ancient Romans rarely ventured out to sea. The traditional birth date of the Roman navy is set at311 B.C.

In recent years massive wooden planks, ropes, and cargo boxes were discovered in a series of caverns near the Red Sea and have been identified as parts of the oldest seafaring ships ever discovered. The find supports evidence that ancient Egyptian mariners set sail on ocean waters as much as 4,000 years ago on voyages that spanned about 1,000 miles each way. Previously, the world's oldest known seafaring ship dated from 1300 B.C., and only small fragments of it are left.

According to Joe Smith's Mormons, we can assume these ancient early Americanswere notAfrican-American either, nor related to American Indians -- and that theItalian, ChristopherColumbus, didn't really discover America -- and that a "reformed Egyptian" language" had existed ata time in human history in 671 B.C. when the Assyrians had attacked Egypt.

Both the Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society have issued statements that they have seen noevidence to support these claims in the Book of Mormon, and furthermore, no secular archeologist or historian has supported theirexistence.

The Fremont culture, a pre-Columbian archaeological culture, lived in what is now north and western Utah fromapproximately 600 to 1300 AD. - - Mormons first came to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847.

After Joe Smith's translation of this mystery language was completed, Smith said he returned the golden plates to their angelic guardian.Therefore, if the plates ever existed, they cannot now be examined. Critics assert that Smith manufactured the plates himself.

Polygamy was taught and practiced by Joseph Smith and his Mormons openly practiced polygamy. After Joseph Smith died in 1844,Mormonism and polygamy was carried on and led by Brigham Young.

Brigham Young is credited with having been responsible for revoking the priesthood and temple blessings from black members of hischurch. He said, "Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixeshis blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so."

Does this somehow imply that Brigham Young though that Adam and Eve's first born son Cain was a black man? It'sbeen said that the cradle of mankind was isAfrica, and that President Obama himself, proved through DNA sampling, hasgenetic ties to this part of Africa. This might help explain Mitt Romney's resentmentof Obama (envy).

Soon after Brigham Young died in 1877, Mormon colonies in Mexico wereestablished near the Sierra Madre mountains in northern Mexico by members of The Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-day Saints beginning in 1885.

Many of the original colonists came to Mexico due to federal attempts to curb and prosecute polygamy in the United States. Thetowns making up the colonies were originally situated in the states of Chihuahua and Sonora, and were all within roughly 200 miles ofthe U.S. border.

Members of the Pratt-Romney family have roots in these colonies, including both Marion G. Romney and George W. Romney,both havingbeen born there.

Mitt Romney's grandfather, GaskellRomney, was one of those in the Mormon colony in Mexico, and was mentionedin the book "The Real Romney". He had been a successful carpenter, house builderand farmer (Mitt called him a "contractor"). Gaskell headed the most prosperousfamily in the colony. Mitt's father, George W.Romney, was born there in 1907 to one of Gaskell Romney's three wives.

By the early 20th century, many of these Mormons were very prosperous. However, in the summer of 1912, the colonies wereevacuated due to anti-American sentiment during the Mexican Revolution and many of their citizens left for the United Statesto never return.

Just like today with the top 1%, more than 95% of Mexico's land had beenowned by less than 5% of the population, and helped spark the uprising becauseof wealth inequality. This vastly unequal distribution of land—and, therefore, wealth—had plagued Mexico for many years, to the anger and dismay of the working classes, as this corrupt system allowed the rich to get richer while ensuring that the poor remained poor, or got even poorer.

Mitt's father, George Romney, was about five years old at the time. The Romney family fled and returned to the United States in July 1912, leaving their home andall oftheir Mexican property behind.

The Romney family lost most of its money and moved from State to State, muchlike unemployed hobos. GaskellRomney eventually found success again as a builder in Utah, but lost much of his money again in the Great Depression.

"He never took out bankruptcy, which he could have done several times," George Romney wrote of his father, according tothe book "The RealRomney."

Fast forward to exactly 100 years later in 2012. Mitt Romney explains, "My dad, as you might know, was born in Mexico and, ah, of American parents who'd been living there for sometime. There was revolution in Mexico, around the early part of the 20th century, 1910 or so, and so his familycame back to the United States and his dad went from place to place. His dad was a contractor, and as you may know contractorshave financial difficulty from time to time." (Yes they do Mitt, yes they do.)

But when Mitt Romney says that "marriage has been defined the same way for literally thousands of years by virtually everycivilization in history", he's excluding his own faith, his grandfather,and his family history to make the argument against gay marriage...especially when Joseph Smith had only invented the religion Mormonism a mere 182 years ago in 1830...when marriage forthem was defined as between a man and a wife and a wife and wife and anotherwife (usually very young and perky wives, teenagers usually. Others call this pedophilia.)

Marriageshould only be defined by his or her own religious beliefs and/or their Church-- the government is obligated respect that. It's called freedom of religion. Justlike Glenn Beck is free to practice his Mormonism, Mitt is also free to practicehis Mormonism...and his cronyism; but at least allow other people to practice their ownbeliefs too, so long as nobody is getting hurt.

(Pictured below, left to right) In 1965 when Mitt Romney was 18 years old, he leda group people in an assaultagain a gay boy, held him down, and cut his hair. One year later after graduating from high school in 1966, Mittdashed off to Europe for 2½ years to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. In 1969 hecame crawling back to the U.S. to marry his sweetheart Ann, to keep from losingher to another man after receiving a "Dear John" letter from her. In 1977 Mittbecame a ruthless (but proud) corporate raider at Bain and Company,laying off people, cutting their wages, stealing their pensions, and generallyruining other people's lives for personal gain. The Republicans call this "success".



(Pictured below) A young Mitt gives his dad a little sage advice.



(Pictured below, left to right) Mitt's grandfather, Gaskell Romney, Salt Lake City, 1917- Mitt's father, Governor George Romney - Governor Mitt Romney (still competingwith his father, just like the younger George Bush did with his father.)

Today Mitt Romney claims:

  1. he doesn't remember the attack on that gay boy,
  2. but he does remember that back then, he didn't think of gay people in that way.

When Mitt Romney was asked about the assault, he shrugged it off and chuckled as though recalling a fond memory. But only a sadistic sociopath would answer," If anybody was hurt by that, or offended by it, obviously I apologize."

Maybe it was his good Mormon upbringing that taught him to be polite when he wascaught in bad behavior.

But just like poor people, God must love gay people too, because He created somany of them -- and they've been aroundmuch longer that Joe Smith and Mitt Romney's family.

I'm always amused when I hear the pompous "believers" use the Biblical argumentthat "God didn't create Adam and Steve, He created Adam and Eve." Soby their own words, because God is always referred to as "He",therefore there must be a Mrs. God solely for the reason of pro-creation (ornecessary for creation), andthat it's not possible to procreate with only one sex, such as hermaphrodites.

Full Disclosure: I'm not gay, never have been, never will be; but just like MittRomney's family, I do have family members who are gay.

The GOP's War on Americans

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Today I re-posted two articles that I think are significant to the unemployedif they rely on any type of government assistance. One article debates what theRepublicans define as "welfare" and the other article refers to theRepublican's proposed cuts in spending next year.

Also read "The Human Disaster of Unemployment", posted inthe NewYork Times by Dean Baker and Kevin Hassett on May 12, 2012:

"Older workers have seen the largest proportionate increase in unemployment. The number of unemployed people between ages 50 and 65 has more than doubled. A worker between ages 50 and 61 who has been unemployed for 17 months has only about a 9 percent chance of finding a new job. Economists estimates a 50 to 100 percent increase in death rates for older male workers in the years immediately following a job loss. There are various reasons for this rise in mortality. One is suicide."


I am the 'Beast' the Republicans want to 'Starve': Starve theBeast is the well-documented and radical 34-year-old plan that Mitt Romney,the Republicans, and the Tea Party endorses for deliberately bankrupting thegovernment."

Define ‘Welfare State,’ Please

Even those who denounce our “unsustainable welfare state” don’t agree on what it is or how its spending should be measured.Brandishing the phrase in his recent call for a structural revolution, David Brooks of The New York Times didn’t get specific.

The Heritage Foundation sometimes offersa narrow definition of the “unsustainable welfare state,” based onmeans-tested programs – benefits directed to those with income below a povertythreshold, like Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, food stamps andMedicaid.

Like many conservative Republicans, however, the Heritage Foundation oftenincludes bigger entitlement programs that are not means-tested, like SocialSecurity and Medicare, within its unsustainable category.

The ball seems to get bigger as it rolls downhill. Some criticsconsider the entire government payroll part of the unsustainable welfare state.Others use governmentspending as a share of gross domestic product as a warning sign. By thesemeasures, military expenditures also count.

Academic researchers also disagree about specifics. The economists IrwinGarfinkel and Timothy Smeeding, for instance, assertthat spending on education should be considered part of the welfare state,emphasizing its productive contributions to the development of human capital.

Like many other researchers, including Christopher Howard, author of “TheHidden Welfare State,” they insist that analysis of government spendingalone provides an incomplete picture, because tax expenditures, such as thecosts of tax breaks for employer-provided health insurance, or for children,should also be counted.

It seems odd to give the same “welfare state” label to all thesedifferent categories of spending. Their distributional impact varies enormously.Means-tested government spending on low-income families is small relative toother transfers. Social Security and government employment tend to benefit themiddle class. Tax expenditures, in particular, tend tobenefit the rich.

Spending trends also vary enormously. Spending on means-tested programs otherthan Medicaid has not increased much over the long run. According to the Budgetof the United States Government for fiscal 2011, it represented about thesame percentage of G.D.P. in 2007 as in 1976 – about 1.3 percent. It increasedto 1.7 percent in 2009 as a result of the great recession.

When unemployment goes up and stays up, spending on programs like food stampsand the earned income tax credit goes up, helping people who can’t find a joband buffering the economy from the effects of income loss.

Spending on Social Security, often treated as the greatest bugaboo of ouraging society, has remained at 4.5 to 5 percent of G.D.P. since 1985. Thealready carried out transition to a higher retirement age is contributing tocost containment.

The scary increases in government spending have come in Medicaid andMedicare. These two programs, which consumed 1.2 percent of G.D.P. in 1975,reached 4.1 percent of G.D.P. in 2008.

These increases have less to do with government spending than with theincreased costs of health care, regardless of who is paying the bill.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research offers anonline calculator showing how much lower our projected deficits would be ifwe could reduce health care spending per person to levels comparable to those ofother affluent countries. The center also graphs the improvement that wouldresult from successful fulfillment of the AffordableCare Act.

If you distrust these calculations, consider that government spending onretirement and health security is largely a substitute for private spending. Tryprojecting your personal expenditures on retirement and health care if SocialSecurity and Medicare are downsized. Your taxes might go down, but you mightneed to spend more out of your own pocket to buy the services you need.

All government programs deserve critical scrutiny, and there is plenty ofroom for meaningful debate over the relative efficiency of public versus privateprovision. But there is no evidence that social spending in the United States isapproaching some upper limit of feasibility.

What is unsustainable (or should be) is the current level of confusion,misinformation and paranoia about the future of the so-called welfare state.

My Post: Obama's 'Welfare State'

  • "Define Welfare State Please" posted in the New York Times by Nancy Folbre on May 14, 2012

Philippine News

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24 Haziran 2012 Pazar

Corporate Raiders like Mitt Romney Lowered Median Household Incomes

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... and they caused high unemployment...not Barack Obama.

“There’sclass warfare all right. But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s makingwar...and we’re winning.” - WarrenBuffett, 2006

(Las Vegas, Nevada, 2012) The "99ers" might be down and out, butthey're not forgotten. The New York Times reportsthat "the widely quoted unemployment rate of 8.1percent reflects only the red portion in the chart below, the 12.5 millionpeople who did not work in April of 2012, but actively searched for work. Abroader unemployment rate, which includes the U-6 figures and includes allthe people in this chart, stands at 14.5%".

But I don't believe those numbers either. I believe it's much, muchworse. It could be as high as 20% if you counted all the "99ers".

Now add to that "14.5%" at least another 8 million more Americanswho've been out of work for at least 99 weeks or longer. To date they haveexhausted all their unemployment benefits without ever finding work again.

But they are no longer being counted, either in the media's reported U-3unemployment rate or in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' reported U-6 rate -- aseither "marginally attached" or "discouraged workers". Thesepeople are known as the "99ers", those that one time may have receivedthe maximum amount of 99 weeks in unemployment benefits in the higher ratedunemployed states.

To date at least eight million Americans have been swept under the statisticalrug. A portion took an early Social Security retirement with reduced benefits atage 62, and a portion applied for disability benefits.

The Bureau of Labor statistics has (or, so I've heard) only recently begankeeping track of these people (the 99ers), but they report much less than thereactually are. The BLS also claims that according to their CPS household survey,these people "gave up searching for work".

As a matter of fact, the BLS justreported (May 2012) that "the number of long-term unemployed (thosejobless for 27 weeks and over) was little changed at 5.1 million in April. Theseindividuals made up 41.3 percent of the unemployed. Over the year, the numberof long-term unemployed has fallen by 759,000."

Did you understand that last sentence? We didn't "fall", we were nolonger counted! And the number of people who are no longer being counted aredropped from their count every month. The media and the BLS co-mingles thesepeople into the "discouraged workers" category, and says they're nolonger looking for work.

Fromthe Bureau of Labor Statistics: "The 'mean' duration estimate issomewhat biased because the greatest number of weeks of unemployment that couldbe recorded in the CPS was capped at 2 years through 2010. In the aftermath ofthe particularly severe recent recession, 9 percent of the unemployed werejobless for 99 weeks or longer in 2010."

I've been unemployed since October 2008 when the mass layoffs were occurring andran out of unemployment benefits in June of 2010. I've been out of work 31/2years, so I know I'm not counted. People like me now rely on a free room from agracious person and use food stamps to survive.

My number (8 million) is fully explained in my post with links to my sources: 8Million Unemployed Not Counted by Labor Dept

Mitt Romney Lowered Median Incomes & Caused Unemployment

Mitt Romney has been citing an interestingeconomic statistic lately about the economy under Barack Obama: He says, “Welllet’s look at what happened. What you’re not going to hear is, that duringhis term median income in America has dropped by $3,000.”

In the fourth quarter of 2008 the median household income was about$55,380 "per household" (or $27,690 each in a two-income household).As of the last quarter of 2011 the median household income was $52,377(or $26,188 each in a two-income household). (a decline of $3,002 per householdor $1,501 per person in a two-income household).

But if we added in those 8 million people I mentioned who no longer have anyincome at all, and who rely solely on food stamps and another's generosity, wecan see why the median household income has dropped since right after theGreat Recession (brought on by the banks and Republican economic policies).

But Mitt Romney isn't really too concerned about our "householdincomes". As a matter-of-fact, he could give a damn. He made $200 millionlaying off people and/or cutting their wages and benefits -- and taking theirpensions through skuzzy bankruptcy deals.

Mitt Romney and his merry band of corporateraiders* had personally lowered households incomes, but PresidentObama never has. The "successful investments" that Romney &Co.likes to brag about (i.e. Staples) just created a whole slew oflow-paying jobs, and not enough to live on.

Yet, if Mitt Romney were ever elected, you can bet ($10,000) that he and theRepublicans will make "average median household incomes" even lowerthan what they are today >>> andhere's but just one reason why.

* An "investor" who buys a large number of shares in a corporation whose assets appear to be undervalued. The large share purchase would give the corporate raider significant voting rights, which could then be used to push changes in the company’s leadership and management. This would increase share value and thus generate a massive return for the corporate raider.

My related posts on Mitt Romney:

  • Can I call Mitt Romney's pal Edward Conard an @sshole?
  • Woman Fired from Bain for Bad Credit Score
  • How many jobs did Mitt Romney create last year?
  • Mitt Romney's Offshore Bank Accounts
  • Obama Tax Plan vs. Mitt Romney's
  • Mitt Romney: Lobbyists, Special Tax Rates & Tax Evasion
  • Mitt and Ann Romney are Full of Horse Manure!
  • Ann Romney Needs to get a REAL Job!
  • Mitt Romney Comes Clean
  • Mitt Romney, the Forbes Fortune 400, and Taxes
  • How Mitt Romney & the 1% Evades Taxes
  • Mitt Romney - Mister 15% and Platinum Parachutes
  • Efficiency expert Mitt Romney: "You're expendable."
  • Mitt Romney Knows Envy Better than Anyone
  • Mitt Romney Connected to $8.5 billion Ponzi Scheme
  • For Mitt Romney, the Joke's on Us
  • Mitt Romney was the real-life Gordon Gekko

My related posts on Jobs, Wages and Unemployment:

  • Take Your Low-Paying Job and Shove it!
  • 15 Million Americans Jobless Over 2 years
  • Where did 15 million jobless Americans go?
  • Two Income Households, 'Mean' and 'Median' Income Statistics
  • Lowest Income Earners Always Get Screwed the Most
  • Wages: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
  • What "we" Earn & what "they" Earn
  • Republicans, Wages, Unions, and the Deep South

I am the 'Beast' the Republicans want to 'Starve'

To contact us Click HERE

"Starve theBeast" is the well-documented and radical 34-year-old plan that Mitt Romneyand the Tea Party endorses for deliberately bankrupting America.

ForbesMagazine:"On July 14, 1978 the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on the Kemp-Roth tax bill, which would have cut all federal income tax rates by about one-third. A key witness wasAlan Greenspan who was the first Republican to articulate what came to becalled the 'starve the beast" theory'."

Alan Greenspan was also themost blamed for the financial crisis of 2008 and the Great Recession.

The GOP's plan is basically this:

  • Cut taxes on the rich,
  • which in turn would reduce government tax revenues,
  • and ultimately force cuts to programs for the poor and middle-class...programs the rich don't need (we are the "beasts" that the Republicans want to starve.)

Starving thebeast is a fiscal-political strategy of American conservatives to cut taxes in order to deprive the government of revenuein a deliberate effort to create a fiscal budget "crisis" that is intended to force the federal government to reduce spending (rather thanrestore tax levels). The short and medium term effect of the strategy has increased United States public debt rather than reducedspending.

We saw this vividly played out last year when the Tea Party Republicansalmost shut down the government, which resulted in having the United States'credit rating reduced.

The term "beast" refers to the government (the people) and the programs it funds, particularly social programs such asTANF, Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, Pell grants and public schools; and does not usually refer to spending on military, law enforcement or prisons.

You heard all the Republicans presidential candidates rant and rave about thesocial programs during the debates.

"Starving the beast" was the premise behind the conservative fiscal strategy, but the growth of spending and deficits (even in the face of large taxcuts) has worn down some of its former supporters, according to syndicated columnist and former U.S. Treasury official BruceBartlett, in an article analyzing the origins and development of the Republican fiscal strategy.“Starve the Beast” - Origins and Development of a Budgetary Metaphor (PDF)

The first rule of Starving the Beast? Don't mentionit. This is not something you can speak of in polite conversation, as an AndrewSullivan reader pointed out:

"This is the culmination of about a thirty year Republican strategy called “starve the beast,” by which Republicans have worked to reduce taxes and increase the national deficit as large as possible – all to create the supposed “deficit crisis” that we now face and to use that crisis to eliminate programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and a slew of other programs (EPA, SEC, Planned Parenthood, collective bargaining, etc.) that the Republican class has never been able to eliminate through the democratic process. This “starve the beast” Republican strategy has been openly acknowledged for years and I know you are well aware of it. And the Ryan “budget plan” is transparently an attempt to cash in on this long-standing political agenda."

RollingStone has a good article: How the GOP became the Party of the Rich - "Ronald Reagan put his tax planto work on behalf of the rich in a move that GOP Majority Leader Howard Baker called a "riverboatgamble". Reagan sold the country on an "across-the-board" tax cut that brought the toptax rate on the rich down to 50 percent. According to supply-side economists, the wealthy would usetheir tax break to spur investment, and the economy would boom.

Bruce Bartlett recalls, "We started talking about just cutting taxes and saying, 'Screw thedeficit.' We had this idea that if you lowered revenues, the concern about the deficit would bechanneled into spending cuts."

It was the birth of what is now known as "Starve the Beast" – a conscious strategy by conservatives to force cuts in federal spendingby deliberately bankrupting the country. As conceived by the right-wing intellectual Irving Kristol in 1980, the plan called for Republicans to createa "fiscal problem" by slashing taxes – and then foist the pain of re-imposing fiscal discipline onto future Democratic administrationswho, in Kristol's words, would be forced to "tidy up afterward."

Americans for Tax Reform, headed by Grover Norquist, used an instrument for enforcement – an anti-tax pledge signed by GOPlawmakers – which quickly evolved into a powerful weapon designed to shift the tax burden away from the rich.

Newt Gingrich and the anti-tax revolutionaries who seized control of Congress in 1994 moved to eliminate taxes on investment incomeand to abolish the inheritance tax. Under the final plan they enacted, capital gains taxes were sliced to 20 percent(now 15 percent with the Bush tax cuts) -- a tax cut that went directly to the top one percent of income earners.

"The capital gains tax cut alone gave the top 400 taxpayers* a bigger tax cut thanall the Bush tax cuts combined," says David Cay Johnston, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author ofPerfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich – and Cheat Everybody Else.

* See the Forbes400 List

From Occupy America in an article: "Where the Right WentWrong"- "Bill Moyers talked with conservative economist Bruce Bartlett, whowrote the bible for the Reagan Revolution, and worked on domestic policy for the Reagan White House, andwho also served as a top treasury official under the first President Bush. Now he's a heretic in the conservative circles where he once was a star. Bartlett argues that right-wing taxpolicies -- pushed in part by Grover Norquist and Tea Party activists -- are destroying the country's economic foundation."

"Starve the Beast," is now being championed by Irving Kristol's son, Bill Kristol(a regular on Fox News) and Grover Norquist...cutting taxesand placing funds into positions where they will have little stimulative effect,which will in fact grow the deficit or remove the dollars from positions in which they could be used for social programs or other methods of helping the poor, thereby forcing the shrinkage of government byaiding the oligarchs." - An Open Letter to Bill O’Brien – Is That Round Table Still Open?, January 18,2012

From a doctoral dissertation entitled "Starving the Beast: Using tax policy and governmental budgeting to drive social policy," by AmyM. Hageman, Univ. Central Florida 2007:

"Strauss viewed liberalism as the crisis of modernity and felt strongly that the natural right of the gentlemen (e.g. the elite) must be protected to allow the gentlemen to rule as an aristocracy within a democratic society. Strauss also saw strong national unity as the key to a successful state. Neo-conservative theory also disdains welfarism and holds that governmental involvement in social problems should be limited, but that strong national security and defense are essential for a unified country. These tenets are fundamental to understanding why contemporary tax policy makers are focused on tax cuts that realign the equity of the tax system to favor the protection of the elite’s wealth and realign federal budgets to shift spending away from social programs that might benefit society’s vulgar."

Grover Norquist has always said of government, "I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

Everyone, regardless of income level, can help starve the beast by drastically cutting consumption. This hits both Federal and State tax collection. By cutting consumption – or consuming ’smartly’, we actually do three things –save money, avoid paying both direct and indirect taxes, and create a downstream loss in revenue, which results in lower collection of corporate income taxes (and a loss of jobs, which is also a loss in government revenue and an increase in government social program spending--- and one step closer to ‘breaking’ the system).

The top 1 percent of American earners receive almost a fifth of the country’s income, according to Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, two economists who study inequality.According to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by the Economic Policy Institute the top 1 percent of Americans, by net worth, hold about a third ofAmerican wealth.

Compensation for chief executives at American companies grew 15 percent in 2011 after a 28 percent rise in 2010, part of a larger trend that has seen CEO pay skyrocket over the last three decades. Workers, on the other hand, have been leftbehind (especially those in the bottom 50% of the workforce.)

Despite previous claims that the Bush tax cuts would raise revenue, we now know the 2001tax cuts was an attempt to starve the beast at a cost of approximately of $1.35 trillion over 10 years while the 2003 tax cuts cost another $350 billion over 10 years. We also know that the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was pegged at $1.26 trillion through 2011 and theun-funded Medicare Part D prescription drug program stands at $272 billion so far.

In 2010 142.8million Americans filed tax returns. The year before about 59 million tax returns were filed with either positive or negative AGI that used exemptions, deductions and tax credits to completely wipe out their federal income tax liability.Read: Who Pays Taxes and Who Receives Government Spending?(PDF)

Last year 50% of all U.S. workersearned less than $26,364 a year. This is the bottom 50% that the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundations says only pays 3% ofall the [federal income] taxes. These are the people the Republicans say"should put more skin in the game".

But because half of our population makes such low wages, the bulk (if not all) of their earnings are spent on basicnecessities in consumption, which is also taxed in other ways. The Republicans want to impose a VAT tax that woulddisproportionately tax low income people more, who are already suffering financial hardship.

Those are the people -- those that need food stamps to eat -- the "beasts" that the Republicans want to"starve".

Reuters: “Starving the beast” is a favorite conservative strategy for forcing cuts in federal spending. The idea is to deprive the government of revenue in order to force spending cuts – and resistance to new taxes was a central feature of theSuper Committee deliberations in Washington.

In fiscal 2011, Congress provided the Social Security Administration with about $1 billion less than requested by President Obama. Those cuts forced the agency to make cuts that beneficiaries have noticed. It suspended mailing of the annual statement of benefits, and it shelved plans to opennew hearing offices to handle the backlog of disability claims, which has soared during the recession.

Europe is now in a recession. There was no debt crisis in Britain but it's now experiencing its first double-dip recession since the 1970s. Robert Reich says they can blame it on their austerity economics --"the bizarre view that economic slowdowns are the products of excessive debt, so government should cut spending. Germany's insistence on cutting public budgets has led Europe into a recession swamp. The danger here for the United States is clear. The Republicans have been demanding and getting spending cuts at the worst possible time -- and ignoring the economic and social consequences."

More people (with natural population growth) makes for "bigger government", and that's why taxation is necessary for domestic spending - which is needed to maintain programs like Social Security and Medicare, while maintaining what's necessary for the defense of thecountry and our infrastructure. The Republican's policies are putting thiscountry into a state of decay while just enriching a few at the very top.

No one is immune from catastrophe. Most of us get old. Anyone can lose theirjob and health insurance. Not everyone has the physical ability to work untilthe day they drop dead, especially if they have a labor intensive job. Anybodycan get seriously ill or become disabled. Many won't be considered for employmentafter they reach a certain age. Most American voters, even Republican ones,might need assistance at some time in their life. Only 1% of the population neednot worry about social safety nets, most of us are just trying to get by. It's ashame that so many people vote against their own best interests, and believethe Republican propaganda, when it's common knowledge the GOP is the party ofthe rich.

Mitt Romney "loves" Paul Ryan's budget plan, the Social Darwinismconcept of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest to justify social policies which make no distinction between those able to support themselves and those unable to support themselves.

They squeezed all they could out of us for food, gas, housing andelectricity. Then they outsourced the jobs overseas. The jobs that are nowavailable don't pay a "living wage". And now they want to cut our verylast lifeline for existence.

The American people (and maybe you) -- are the "beasts" the Republicans want to"starve".

Editor's Note: After working for almost four decades, 56-year-old BudMeyers was laid off in 2008 and has now been unemployed for the past 3½ years.He is currentlysurviving on food stamps while pursuing a Social Security disability claim... a"beast" the Republicans want to "starve".