Rambling Gibbersh

What's in a Name?

2008-02-22T15:03:00.002-05:00

A name is an important thing. I’m certain that Madison Avenue types spend lots of money to name a new product to better sell it to the public. They labor over just the right name to provide allure, mystery, and irresistibility.

The Bush administration has done a good job of coming up with names to sell the public on the dubious benefits of some of their dubious programs.

To name one, The Patriot Act. Who wants to be against something like the Patriot Act? You’d have to be anti-patriotic to be against it. Of course, it could be an infringement on your civil liberties.

The Death Tax is another good example. What (you may ask)? They’re taxing death now when we all thought that death was what got us out of paying taxes. The death tax, as it is called, is a tax that is levied against estates when someone passes away. Its main purpose is to tax large estates. Middle class folks will rarely be affected by it. (For the record, only 3% of estates were subjected to the estate tax in 2002), but this administration has a distinct allergy to any tax, so it had to go. (Not that they have an aversion to spending.)

One of the primary reasons posited by the administration was that it was a direct attack on the family farm because while these farmers are usually cash poor, they are land rich and land must be considered an asset. Now, never mind that there has been no record of a family farm going under because of the estate tax and only 2% of these family farms were subject to the tax.

What about the Clean Air act? It poses as something that will provide all Americans with clean, unscented air when it is actually legislation that takes the teeth out of already existing legislation and gives large corporations a break. Who cares that it increases the amount of mercury in our environment?

Master’s of stagecraft, the Bush administration certainly wouldn’t leave out the chance to come up with a snappy phrase for a banner. Who can forget “Mission Accomplished?” This banner was placed prominently over the deck of the aircraft carrier after a dramatic fly in by the commander-in-chief. This was supposed to give viewers sense of accomplishment when we all knew that there was years of work ahead. But we knew better because since then the U.S. soldier casualty rate doubled.

When it seemed as if the wheels were coming off the administration, it was time for another banner – A Plan for Victory. Now, who would put up a banner that stated, “A Plan for Failure?”

So, just remember, everything is in a name. Just make sure you know what the name really means.

Sources
http://www.factcheck.org/article328.html

http://www.savethecleanairact.org/pdf/FS-S-131-Mercury.pdf

Health Care Myths and Facts: Comparing the U.S. and Canadian Systems

2005-11-15T17:18:00.001-05:00

If I’ve heard once, I’ve heard a thousand times, the U.S. Health care system is better than the Canadian system. And additionally: “the Canadian system is what the Democrats are trying to force on us.”

More comments follow:
“I don’t want to wait for 6 months to get to see my doctor.”
“I’ve heard that they whole country only has 5 MRI machines.”
“Canadian doctors, finding the profit-based American system so attractive, are moving to America in droves”

But what is the truth about the two systems?

The Canadian’s Health Care System biggest problems are wait times, an increasing shortage of health care professionals and a sharp increase in chronic, but probably preventable, diseases.

Many conservative-biased stories will cite research done by the Fraser Institute. This institute is a private think tank that is dedicated to the idea of free market reforms of Canadian public programs. In my opinion, you have to take what they say with a grain of salt. Anyway, the Fraser institute study states that wait times can be quite long for patients to gain access to specialists. Obviously, this is a big strike against the Canadian system.

But when you compare it the U.S. free market system, you can see some glaring problems with the U.S. system with the most obvious being that 45 million Americans go without Health Care and another large percentage have either limited policies or policies that carry ever increasing and cost prohibitive premiums. And even U.S. citizens with health care coverage are seeing an increase trend in which employers are moving more and more costs on to the employee and providing less and less benefits.

Here’s a fun fact: The population in Canada is 32 million. As I stated above, we have 45 million Americans without health insurance.

How can one nation insure all it’s people and one only create a “pay to play” system?

Probably the best quote I’ve come across regarding this topic went like this:
“The United States has the best health care system in the world, but the worst insurance.”

Yes, we in the United States, we do have the most advanced technology in health care. Yes, we can get into the doctor’s office in a timely manner, but all-in-all, in the U.S. it comes down to have or have-not cold equation. You either have and/or can afford health care or you can’t.

But, let’s back-up and get back to the truth of comparing some of the fundamental perceptions about the two systems.

As I stated earlier, many people think that waits times in Canada are too long. Here’s some facts for you.

More legitimate research shows that the average waiting time for knee replacement in Ontario is 8 weeks, as compared to 3 weeks in the U.S.

There are virtually no waits for emergent coronary artery surgery in Canada

With these perceptions, it seems we are more concerned about the Canadian Health Care system than the Canadians. How do Canadians feel about their system?

Patient satisfaction levels with the procedures and care are identical in both systems

Surveys show that Canadian doctors are far happier with their system than we are with ours. According to a 1992 poll, 85% prefer their system to ours; 83% rate the care in Canada as very good or excellent, and most physicians would urge their children to enter the profession.

Fewer than 300 out of Canada’s 50,000 physicians emigrate to the U.S. each year

In the fall of 2004, only 6% of Canadians felt that the quality of health care was falling.

Only 17% (of Canadians) felt their system needed completely overhauled while 33% of U.S. citizens feel this way (about their U.S. system).

Surveys show very high patient satisfaction in Canada. 96% prefer their system to ours, and 89% rate care good or excellent

Now, on to the question of the uninsured in American and what they really costs us. Many might have the perception that because 45 millions people are uninsured, they don’t cost us anything.

That couldn’t be farther from the truth. The insured do get sick and injured and they don’t hesitate to seek medical care even when they can’t pay. And it’s the insured that do pay – in increased health care premiums and in increased health care costs.

The cost of the care provided to the uninsured by hospitals in 2001 was $24 billion dollars.

In 2005, premium costs for family health insurance coverage provided by private employers will include an extra $922 in premiums due to the cost of care for the uninsured; premiums for individual coverage will cost an extra $341.

Treatment costs for uninsured US residents indirectly account for about $1 of every $12 insured US residents spend on health insurance premiums.

What about a cost comparison between the two systems?

Private insurers take, on average, 13% of premium dollars for overhead and profit. Overhead/profits are even higher, about 30%, in big managed care plans like U.S. Healthcare. In contrast, overhead consumes less than 2% of funds in the fee-for-service Medicare program, and less than 1% in Canada’s program.

Take a moment to absorb that fact. The much maligned Medicare system has an over head of only 2%.

Physicians in the U.S. face massive bureaucratic costs. The average office-based American doctor employs 1.5 clerical and managerial staff, spends 44% of gross income on overhead, and devotes 134 hours of his/her own time annually to billing.

The New England Journal of Medicine reported health care spending absorbs only 10 percent of the Canadian gross domestic product, compared to 14 percent of U.S. GDP

Of course, you do have to factor in that twenty-two percent of all taxes raised in Canada are spent on its health care system.

This piece wasn’t intended to be a piece that advocated for a single payer system in the U.S., because when I started investigating the facts about the two systems, I thought my conclusion would be that the two systems fit the two different political systems of each country. But the more I studied the facts, the more the single payers system seems to make sense.

As trends move towards higher premiums in the U.S. and as employers push more and more of the cost onto employees, it seems inevitable that a single payer system will have to be adopted.

But it won’t be without a fight from private interests who provide health care in the U.S.

Private insurers take, on average, 13% of premium dollars for overhead and profit. Overhead/profits are even higher, about 30%, in big managed care plans like U.S. Healthcare.

This loss of profit for the private sector will create a battleground. Just make sure you know the facts when you go to chose sides.

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Sources:

Medical News Today

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/why_the_us_needs_a_single_payer_health_system.php

http://www.mediresource.com/e/pages/hcc_survey/index_e.asp

http://www.cma.ca/multimedia/staticcontent/CMA/Content_Images/Inside_cma/Better-Access/Ipsos-Polling.pdf

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=173900

http://www.familiesusa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Paying_a_Premium_splash

Media Wars: The Boomerang Backlash Effect

2005-05-23T11:09:00.000-04:00

Newsweek made a mistake. It got sloppy. But the practice of using anonymous sources is the same technique used to uncover necessary truths – like Watergate and President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinski.

Anonymous sources are also tools of administrations, too. Many administrations have leaked stories to the press for their benefit.

You have to ask yourself, why didn’t the Pentagon refute the story when Newsweek gave it to them to fact check?

What about the anonymous source in the military? Newsweek followed reporting protocol and offered the Pentagon a review of the article, yet Newsweek takes all the blame, while this anonymous course remains, well, anonymous and unscathed.

Can you just hear the dialog prior to the release of the article?

NEWSWEEK: (To the Pentagon.) Can you read this over and let us know if we have this right?

PENTAGON: (Later, behind close doors.) Hmmm. This thing about the Quran being flushed down the toilet looks pretty bad. And so does this prisoner abuse stuff, but is it ALL true? And who is the source for this? We need to find them and let the public know who it is.

LATER.

PENTAGON: Here’s your story back. Looks good to us.

But the preceding paragraphs aren’t really the points I wanted to make. I’m not an apologist for Newsweek. I’m seeing a dangerous trend from Right wing pundits employing a tactic of demonizing the press, specifically outlets they label with a liberal bias.

Conservatives have successfully sold the idea that the press is liberal. Ask any quasi-knowledgeable, conservative person and they will start citing statistics about how the majority of reporters voted for democratic candidates, about how the press favors liberal stories, and how Dan Rather sloppily gathered facts in some of his recent stories.

Newsweek opened the door for more “facts” to be built up against the “liberal media establishment.” It was a real case of piling on as conservative pundit after conservative pundit lined up bash Newsweek and “uncover” yet another “abuse” of the American people by the liberal media.

One of the best examples is Michael Reagan, who in his latest column, blames Newsweek for

“inciting riots that killed at least 16 or 17 and injured scores more”

and

"reported a bogus story that caused the deaths of not 16 people.”

That Reagan fails to acknowledge that the Newsweek article also factually includes references of prison abuse along with the fact that our war effort is supremely unpopular in the Muslim world makes his claim somewhat amusing were not for the fact that these riots did result in casualties. While the Newsweek article may have been the tipping point, it certainly didn’t “cause” the death of 16-17 people. The Muslim extremists behind these riots need little or no reason to riot. They have hated American influence for years and add it the fact that we have invaded their homeland and anyone can see how they might riot.

I think David Letterman's quip on it summed it up best. (I'll paraphrase.)

"There seems to be an uproar over in the Mid-East after Newsweek ran an article about a Quran beingh flushed down a toilet in a prisoner of war camp. That's too bad because, you know, they loved us up until then."

Another example of how the conservative media is trying to paint the rest of the media into a corner is Dick Morris’ take on the Newsweek article. He states regarding the story,

(the) “Newsweek magazine story falsely reporting desecration of the Koran by American military interrogators”

and

“And now Newsweek has published an inflammatory story that has led to massive anti-American demonstrations in Afghanistan — the first since the war — protesting the seeming defilement of sacred texts. Sixteen people are dead because Newsweek got the story wrong,”

Again, I return to the core argument that Newsweek did not make up the story of the Quran being flushed down a toilet, they reported it from an highly regarded military source. And when placed along side the slew of atrocious prisoner abuse cases perpetrated during this war, does it seem out of context that a Quran would be flushed down a toilet to add to the debasement of these prisoners? Come on, there are pictures of a pile of naked Muslim men out there and men forced to crawl on the ground wearing a dog collar. How far do you have to go to “buy” the fact that a Muslim sacred text could be flushed down a toilet to add to this debasement?

And my last example, from Barbara Simpson, reporting for World Net Daily (a reach, yes);

“Newsweek lied, but did so because in the thin air of East Coast journalism, the purpose was more important than the message. It was a scoop. It would air more alleged scandal to shame and incriminate the United States, the U.S. military and especially President Bush and his administration.”

She adds:

“Newsweek printed the scandalous story without verifying its truth or reaffirming sources.”

Did Newsweek lie? Or did the anonymous source lie? Did Newsweek uses its liberal bias to report an unfavorable story towards an administration it has great disdain for?

Newsweek did not lie. Again, Newsweek was sloppy, but it had a source. If you have a reliable source that tells you something and you print it, how can that be construed as a lie and bised reporting. It's beyond me.

This isn’t to give reporters a lazy, free-pass to not do their jobs thoroughly. Media has a great responsibility to get their stories correct and this is an example of how they didn’t get it right, but for conservative media columnists to use it as way to cite yet another example of how the liberal media is out bashing the administration and the troops again, come on. The Right is exploiting the situation for their own gain.

Frankly, I think it’s less of a case of liberal bias, but a part of media’s desperate need to break the story. This need to be first has driven many a reporter and media outlet to jump to conclusions, get facts wrong, and generally practice poor journalism.

But the current (effective) tactic of conservatives is to go on the attack when a “liberal media outlet” gets it wrong. This tactic puts these media outlets back on their heels and effectively start marginalizing their credibility with the public. But the hypocritical aspect of the whole tactic is that conservative media outlets have made the same mistakes and display their bias on a regular basis.

Conservatives, media or not, have played an effective game of labeling the media and the people have bought it. Thoughtful and sometime provocative news outlets have been labeled “East Coast Liberal Elitists” and we in fly-over land are buying it to our detriment.

From my experience, reporters from the past worked hard to remain objective and restrain their biases. Today, conservative media outlets show no pretense in this area. Bias is rampant. Watch FOX News or listen to Rush Limbaugh for a week and find out what I mean.

I can say that, yes, through use of story selection and probably some slight bias, there probably has been a liberal bias to the media for several decades. And yes, if you’re a conservative, this might annoy you, but currently there is a boomerang backlash in effect that is grossly tipping the scale away from any idea of unbiased reporting. Reporting critical of this current administration and our efforts in Iraq have been labeled as attacks from the liberal media.

But what is the role of media and hasn’t the media in the past been instrumental in bring to light abuses of power? Isn’t a free press one of the greatest assets of our country?

I fear that the conservative tactics of the right are endangering the balance that lies between government and the press. This check and balance system between government and the media has had a long and effective tradition in our country. Certainly, there can be two sides to a story, but when the press becomes neutered, we as a public lose an avenue of information to help us make up our own minds.

With the advent of cable TV and the internet, we have seen the gradual break down of the media in into ideological camps. Yes, some East coast papers have a liberal slant. But, also talk radio is vastly conservative. Balance, accuracy and responsible journalism is what we all deserve.

Ultimately, it’s my opinion that while the media of the past may have held a bias, it in the vast majority of instances, held that bias in check, attempting to deliver fact-based stories that would help Americans make up their own mind. In this new polarized media landscape, with lines been drawn and camps set-up and partisan politics playing a greater role in reporting, bias is coming through loud and clear and I don’t think Americans are better off for it.

Sources:
Michael Reagan Artilce

Dick Morris Article

Barbara Simpson Article

The Corporatization of America: Part 1

2005-05-13T13:13:00.001-04:00

Yes, I’ve coined a new word, Corporatization. You read it the title of this missive. What do I mean by this word? What I mean by this is that if you keep your eyes open, you will see that our lives in America are dominated by corporate influence.

This will be a teaser article to just open your eyes to the way your lives are being shaped and molded influences that you either don’t pay attention to or are not aware of. Hopefully, I will be able to add to the specific example highlighted in this installment, by bringing to light other examples in future posts.

I give Ronald Reagan much of the credit for this change in influence. When Ronald Reagan campaigned for office he used this catchy campaign phrase to persuade voters he was their man, “Government isn’t the solution to our nations’ problems, it is the problem.”

Now, that’s an ironic statement coming from the man who hoped to lead that government.

Anyway, voters were persuaded and the Reagan revolution was started. “Big” government was demonized and checks and balances in place for many years were systematically dismantled. Deregulation, good or bad, was a part of the paradigm shift.

Corporate Influence Case #1
Drug Companies Profit Up -- FDA Influence Down
During the ‘90s, the FDA was a strong advocate for the consumer, but as lobbying forces were applied and an administration came into power that was more inclined to please corporate forces than protect the consumer, the FDA has rolled on to it’s back in submission.

From 1998 to 2004, drug companies nearly doubled their spending on lobbying efforts, going from $79 million to $158 million. Now, our representatives may say that all these efforts and money may grant some people access, but it doesn’t equal influence. Now, you can decide for yourself if a individual voter in Peoria has the same clout as a multi-billion dollar drug company contributing generously to a campaign coffer.

Here’s something to mill over. The drug companies used this “influence” to speed up the process by which drugs are approved by the FDA because the faster a drug came to market, the more money a company can make. What about that pesky fact that some drugs really need more testing? Who cares? There's money at stake here, not lives.

Take the case of Redux (a drug to help people lose weight). It was rushed through the approval process and then was pulled from the market because of the fact that it caused heart damage. This is just one in a long line of drugs brought to market without proper and safe review.

Drug companies also were a dominate force behind the bill to provide senior citizens prescription drug benefits. Now, what could be bad with seniors getting help with their purchases of medicine?

Well, along with the benefit, the drug companies also knuckeled the government under to approve the fact that the government could NOT negotiate prices of the drugs. Now, why is that Canadians pay less for the same drugs we get in here in America and why can’t our representatives see that they just sold the consumer up river? Because drug companies used their influence to rig the deal in their favor.

Drug companies also make exaggerated claims about the cost of developing a new drug.

Here’s one ploy: Drug companies claim that the cost of developing a new drug is $800 million. Well, half of this claim is based on the fact that they take the cost of development and state that if they had invested the money instead they would have seen X amount of profit. Then they take this estimated profit and add it to the exaggerated total of development.

That would be sort of like any homeowner claiming that if he he/she had invested all their mortgage payments in the market instead of paying off their house (and instead lived in a card board box), they could be rich!

Drug companies also fail to disclose the fact that that in many cases, their “brand” new drug is really just a slight derivative of an existing drug from which they have already reaped a generous profit.

Marketing is where all the money is being spent. Along with increasing their influence on our legislators, drug companies are also working on us, the consumer and our doctors. Who can watch the evening broadcast news without seeing at least a half dozen adds for these new drugs? Drug sales reps are in a conga-like stream in and out of doctor’s offices offering “educational” trips to Aspen or to the islands to “teach” doctors about the wonders of their new drugs.

This is a just a tease to the amount of influence that corporations are exerting over our culture and lives. It’s time to step back and open our collective eyes.

Corporations are in the business of making a profit. There’s nothing wrong with that. Profit is good. But when profit without the restraints of ethics and considering what is best for the whole of American is standard operating procedure, then you start to see an imbalance. Just take a look at how oil companies are gouging consumers with high gasoline prices while the companies themselves are showing record profits while taking cover under the excuse that OPEC has raised the price of crude. (See my earlier blog post for more on this.)
These profits are well and good for oil companies and their stockholders, but they are clearly having an effect on the economy as a whole, causing a drag on consumer spending as retail prices are affected.

And the drug companies are a part of this drag. U.S. Health care premiums for us, the consumer, have increased 11% since 2001. I can tell you that I know wages haven't seen that sort of increase. This cost increase creates not a only a burden on the consumer, but on companies who provide benefits like health care. Since 2001, there are 5 million fewer jobs that have health care provided benefits. This is largely due to increases in drug costs. Consumers have also seen a 15% increase in the cost of perscriptions since 1995.

All this while drug companies are generating fabulous profits. Again, profit isn't a bad thing, but when it comes at the expense of the whole, you have to start having second thoughts about who the corporation has in mind. It's certainly not you or me.

In closing, what I don’t get from the American voter is that they fail to perceive that government, not “Big” government, is the best line of defense against the negative influence of corporate greed and influence gone astray. While I can’t and won’t support a government that flagrantly wastes tax payers money on pork barrel spending or throws bad money after good in hopeless causes, I think that government has job to protect us from corporate influence that sees on only profit and not the good of the whole.

Stay tuned -- More to come.

Sources:
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/20001220/02/printerfriendly

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=22683

The Social Security Conundrum

2005-04-19T17:01:00.001-04:00

The battle is on. From one side of the aisle, you get, “Social Security is broken and it must be fixed.” From the other side, you get, “Social Security is the most successful government program ever and just needs some tweaking.”

Who’s right? Actually both of them are right.

Social security has lifted millions and millions of our elderly out of poverty. Prior to its inception, 70% of all seniors lived in poverty. From 1960 on, poverty levels for the elderly has fallen from 34% to 10.5%. Now, most seniors live a comfortable existence. That’s what I call success. And it didn’t put a major drag on the economy while it did it.

But things have changed. In 1960, there were 5 workers for every social security beneficiary. By 1995, that figures was down to 3 to 1. By 2030, it will be two workers supporting each individual recipient.

Many factors have narrowed this ratio. Longer life spans are the biggest contributor. These longer life spans stretch the system, increasing the amount of years social security has to provide benefits.

Placing the responsibility on the 3-to-1 and, then in the future, the 2-to-1 ratio will put an unfair and unmanageable burden on younger workers in the future. This imbalance will force increases in pay roll taxes and also will take government resources from programs directed at our young. Today, seniors receive $11 in federal benefits compared a $1 for children. If you also include the ever increasing costs of providing health care for our nation’s elderly via Mediacare and you have a looming economic burden that will dominate the U.S. government so much that there will be very little dollars for anything else.

Also, one of the by-products of social security has been the way it has decreases self reliance and increased a reliance on the government to provide comfortable and humane existences for our elderly.

To illustrate this point, nearly 33% of our country’s elderly population relies on social security for 90-100% of their income. 65% rely on it for 50% or more of the retirement income.

From my standpoint, that’s too much reliance on the government to take care of us. There is little incentive to plan and provide for your retirement when the government will do it.

From a cultural perspective, American savings rates have fallen precipitously in the last half decade. We have gone from a nation of savers to a nation of debtors. Too much dependency has been placed on the government to supply a basic standard of living, leaving the individual less and less need for self sufficiency.

A famous philosopher stated that the moral standing of a society is judged on the world it leaves its children.

So, private accounts – I’m all for them. Fixing social security – I’m all for it.

Am I supporting the diversion of money from social security into private accounts? No. But I think that it should be a responsibility of every citizen to plan for their retirement outside of social security and to find a way to more self sufficient and becoming less reliant on the government. Moving from a debtor society to a saving society should be an important benchmark for every American and in so doing this, they could relieve some of the responsibility on the government to provide for them in retirement and enable the government to enrich the lives of our children.

As for fixing social security, there have been several sensible ideas placed on the table. One smart one is to change the way social security is linked to wages and instead index it to inflation. Inflation generally increases less than wages and thus decreases the long term burden on social security.

Reducing cost of living adjustments by a small percentage is another way to pare down the cost of social security. Another possible idea is increasing the salary cap on how much someone could contribute from their wages into security. Currently the cap is at $90,000. If that cap were doubled, these high-end wage earners could contribute more and this spread around the increased contribution.

These are just a few of the ideas out there that I feel balance out solutions for addressing the real concern for the future of social security and still allow a way to nurture a culture in which the individual is just as responsible as the society as a whole to providing for retirement.

My parting point is that while social security dominates the political landscape today, health care will dwarf its importance in our lives as a society and as individuals. It’s my take on the situation that everyone can and should be able to plan for their financial future, but with the astronomic rise in health care costs in the past 30 years, I would prefer to see the government find a way to either curb costs or to provide quality health care (and both would be nice).

The Gasoline Noose

2005-04-15T16:48:00.001-04:00

A friend of mine, after reading my blog requested that I investigate his question:
“Why are we (the consumer) paying so much for gasoline when oil companies are showing record profits?”

A good question and one that has been on the mind of many of us.

I would imagine that the question hits our consciousness, but then the initial thought is countered with what we’ve heard in the media regarding the price increases imposed by our oil providers – entities like OPEC. Then we slip into, “Those darn guys are driving up the price I pay at the pump. They’ve got plenty of oil. Why are they choking off the supply and driving up prices? (Pause.) Well, I guess I just have to pay, it’s outside my (and my government’s) control, until we move away from using fossil fuels.”

You might even start considering the fact that China has increased its demand for oil dramatically in the past two decades.

This is logical way to think. But what if the enemy wasn’t those darned outsiders and the enemy was really within?

Now is the time when many reading this article will think that I have moved into the paranoid realm of the conspiracy wacko.

Yes, the enemy can be found not outside the friendly confines of Western culture but within. Oil suppliers have deceased supply and this has had an effect on prices, but the real reason behind the latest price increases has to do within calculated moves within the oil industry in the last 10-15 years.

How did this come about?

In the past 15-20 years, there has been major consolidation of companies through mergers in the oil industry. 31 companies have dwindled to 21. Now this may not seem significant, but behind this is the fact between 80 to 90 percent of all oil refineries are consolidated within just a few major companies when in the past these refineries were spread through out a larger number of companies. Some can say that this consolidation has led to the increase in prices because competition has been reduced.

Oil companies have used these excuses to defend themselves:
> increased crude oil prices
> blaming the clean air act
> no new sources of oil

These new steps toward consolidation have set the ground rules for reducing efforts to find new resources (either more oil supplies or looking into alternative fuels) and for price setting, thus reducing market competitive forces. These newly consolidated companies also decided to reduce capacity to produce gasoline by not maintaining and expanding refinery capacity.
Some could say that this consolidation and these other decisions have been a major collusion effort on the industry’s part to choke off supply in the face of rising demand, in turn, allowing them to increase prices and greatly increase profits.

Maybe collusion is stretching it a bit, but you certainly can’t deny the fact the profits companies have had recently:
Exxon Mobil up 52%
ChevronTexaco up 82%
Shell Oil up 48%

Am I against profits? No. Every company should be able to make a healthy profit, but with a product that is so centrally tied to our economy and when increased to price levels that we have seen in the near recent past, I think the present price gouging going on is immoral and unethical and someone should be looking out for us – the little people. And who should that be, you might ask?

I think this is a perfect place for our political leaders to step in and offer some sort of effort to stem the tide of rising prices to protect the consumer.

But, with the risk of sounding even more like a wacko, our current President has historic ties to oil industry with a deep background in Texas oil. Several efforts to convince the administration to step in and protect consumers have been rebuffed.

For the middle income American, these increases in price are certainly having an effect. Traveling, heating, and the price of products we buy and use (because of the increased price of transportation to get them to store has to be passed on to the consumer) have seen great inflation in the past few years. These increased costs start to eat at the margin of our lives.

Maybe the administration is looking to the stock holders and say they are finally getting the windfall they deserve because as the oil companies profit, so do stock holders.

But really, do middle income American’s really see that sort of benefit? I would have to assume not. Middle income citizens don’t have the buffer in their budgets to absorb the effects of this multiplied effect of increased gas prices. Affluent people can take the hit, but I think (and this is only my humble opinion) that if this continues for any great duration, we will start to see a real drag on our economy. And this sort of drag starts to affect everyone.

Okay, to be fair, there is another culprit in this crime. It’s our burgeoning trade deficit and its effect to weaken the U.S. dollar. As the dollar has weakened, its inability to keep up with other currencies has increased by 7.5% in how much we have to pay for oil.

Another defense of the industry, booms are historically followed by busts in which oil companies face greatly decreased profits. Oil companies will claim that, historically, their profits are around seven cents a gallon. Today, though, they are looking at something around 10 times that at seventy-five cents a gallon.

My suggestion is that there should be a governor put in place to protect consumers from being taken advantage of by price gouging at times like these. Our economy and lives are inextricably intertwined with oil. Oil is used to make so many products that are essential to our lives. Gasoline is vital to transporting us and products we rely on. When the price of gasoline increases, it has such a far reaching effect on almost every product that we use in our day-to-day existence, I feel that our government needs to take measures to maintain a balance between profits for companies and cultivating a price structure that allows consumers to “tank up” without having to consider a second mortgage.

Some efforts have been made in the congress to do this, but they aren’t getting far. Senator Reid (D - Nevada) has asked that the FTC intervene in this price gouging effort by oil companies, but the FTC has stated they are still investigating the situation…while the oil companies reap record profits.

Senator Harry Reid said emphatically, “…this outrageous 58-cent increase in Nevada since January has not been driven by the rising cost of crude oil, but by corporate greed and profit.”

How far those words carry and how well they are received in the current political climate is yet to be calculated, but I would imagine that won’t be too effective.

Ultimately, we need to find a way to get out from under the “gasoline noose.” Efforts must be stepped up to find other sustainable and less tenuous supplies of energy to power our economies and cleanly provide products and transportation.

For now, my friend (responding to the initial question) I say start riding that bike again, walk, or better plan your trips out and about because, for the foreseeable future, this is where and how we live. And when you’re out, drop a letter to your representative to ask him or her to take a look and see what they can do.

Sources:
http:////www.forbes.com/2004/08/09/cx_pm_0809oilbrief_print.html

http://the-spark.net/newspaper/i744/6f12.html

http://www.consumersunion.org/pub/FTCBOOKf.pdf

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-47,GGLD:en&q=Oil+Company+Profits

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-47,GGLD:en&q=Oil+Company+Profits

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-47,GGLD:en&q=Oil+Company+Profits

Why I am a Democrat: Reason #1

2005-03-14T10:54:00.000-05:00

Now, I just got some advice the other day that I will almost completely ignore. It was; define yourself on what you are and not what the other guy is or stands for.

Well, it’s difficult to define yourself as a democrat in this current world of bitter partisan politics without saying more about what you aren’t.

One of the basic tenants of the conservative agenda is lower taxes. And the end is to get more of “my money” out of the hands of wasteful government, fat cats and give back to me because “they” think they know how to spend “my money” better than I do.

Now, you could go into deep theological arguments about whose money it is because if you believe in God and Christ like I do, it’s not really your money. It’s something that God has blessed you with and you are to be the best steward of it.

Okay, theology aside, what I hear underpinning this argument is that voice of the “me.” Give me back “my money.” Conservative economist and think tank analysts constantly talk about lowering taxes and getting money back into the hands of the people. This way these “people” can create wealth for themselves and their families.

Conservative economic analysts also say that people are better at prioritizing how their money is spent than big government. This sort of statement makes my point. What do you think “the people’s” priorities are (when they get their tax money back)? Knowing that fellow less fortunate citizens have quality health care? Caring that impoverished children get a helping hand with a Head Start program? Wanting to invest in a future-thinking mass transit system that lowers the emissions from cars and helps preserve our environment?

Or is the priority that big screen TV down at Circuit City?

What I don’t hear is what about the greater good. The focus seems so much on the individual and the “me” and not the “us.” What can I get for “me?”

John F. Kennedy implored us to, “Think about what we can do for the good of the country.” Certainly, conservatives can posit that tax cuts are for the good of the country, but from many conservatives, I get a sense that they are demonizing a certain class of people who “take” from decent hard working people in the form of government hand outs.

I can’t advocate an expansion of the welfare state and a nurturing of a culture of dependency. I do know that some government programs have almost created incentives to those who want to take advantage, but why can’t we look to finding solutions to these systematic problems instead of throwing the baby out with the water?

The “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality is certainly laudable but when it becomes the mantra of the right when many of them haven’t felt the pangs of hunger from poverty or been deprived, it comes across as a cruel and thoughtless epithet against the unfortunate.

From my perspective, this “Philosophy of Me” comes across as so insular and, for the lack of a better word, selfish. What about the “other guy?” What about the guy down on his luck through no fault of his own? Do we truly want to become a country of “I’ve got mine, too bad about you?”

I don’t like defining myself by what I’m not, but I know what I’m not and that will have to do for now.

The Right’s Wrong Turn on a Living Wage

2004-12-14T16:28:00.000-05:00

Advocating an increase in the minimum wage or standing on the “living wage” soap box can raise the ire of many conservatives. And they will try to pull rabbit out of the hat to prove to you that higher wages really hurt the working stiff and aren’t necessary.

Witness this interesting diverting tactic that some conservatives might use to deflect questions of the declining wage of American workers. I recently heard the response of a conservative economist when posed with the question of effects of a declining standard of living of American workers. He adroitly steered the question away from the issue of wages to the buying power of consumers, stating that for a mere $2000, the consumer could purchase a bevy of items that 20 years ago would have been out of reach for him or her. These items included a personal computer, a DVD player, a cell phone, and numerous other consumer items.

But what he neglected to do was answer the question. Almost all of the items mentioned wouldn’t be consider necessities. Necessities would be:
housing – with costs increasing dramatically over those 20 years of decreasing prices,
heating – with increases in energy prices,
health care – also with dramatic costs increases,
gasoline - which all know hasn’t gotten any cheaper lately

When you examine how real wages have fallen over the past 30 years and place it against paying for the increased necessities of life, you can easily see through the “buying power” argument. Plus, you add to this equation the new reality that to get prices so low on consumer products, you have to outsource jobs to other countries. This outsourcing puts the American worker out of the job that paid him/her a living wage and into the nether-realm of just-over-minimum-wage land.

Some conservatives will also point out the there have been increases in real wages and that all minimum jobs are counted in the statistics when liberals cite “inflated” numbers of people earning only minimum wage.

Okay, for arguments sake, let’s give one of our displaced workers a job in the new economy right at the average hourly wage. Let’s call him Joe and say, he makes, $8.25, which is what a study shows cited by the Heritage Foundation (http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm491.cfm).

That $8.25 per hour equals just over $17,000 before taxes. So, let’s give Joe a take home pay of $15,000. Divide that $15,000 by 12 for the monthly expenses and you get $1250 a month. Now, we have to give old Joe some liabilities. A wife (a stay-at-home model) and a child (2 years old).

Let’s examine Joe’s Monthly Budget:
Housing (2 bedroom apt) $650
Heating $ 80
Gasoline $ 80
Health Care $350
Car payment $200
Phone $ 45
Food $200
TOTAL $1605

As you can see, Joe, to provide the basics has out striped his take home pay. Joe could do without a car. Then he could do without the insurance that wasn’t included. And I guess that health care is a luxury that he can’t afford, too. Too bad that when his child gets an ear infection, he shows up at the emergency room, unable to pay, and that costs get hoisted back on us.

Okay, Scooges of the world say what your black heart’s are feeling, “The world doesn’t owe Joe a living!” Maybe in the Scrooge-vein, we should say that Joe should be thinking about reducing the surplus population?

No, in the cold harsh reality of the world, Joe isn’t owed a living wage, but please don’t use less than clever diversion tactics to say that Joe can go out and buy a new computer, DVD player, and cell phone when he can barely put food on the table, a roof over his families head, and provide for proper health care. It’s intellectually dishonest and doesn’t address the question of providing a worker a living wage for days work.

America's Great Villain Creation Set

2004-12-08T13:32:00.000-05:00

America needs its villains. At least it thinks it does.

Think back over the past thirty years or so and review the standard operating political strategy of leaders faced with foreign policy adversaries. Whenever a President needs to muster the support of public opinion against a person, place or an ideology, it’s always in his best interest to put a face on “evil.”

How many of you remember Ayatollah Khomeini, Moammar Gadhafi, and Manuel Noriega? How many of you knew of them before they became public enemy, number one? Certainly, this rogue’s gallery won’t make any humanitarian lists and also justly deserve the infamy they engendered, but you can notice political strategy of creating a villain.

Ronald Reagan did it to an entire nation when he referred to the former Soviet Union as the “Empire of Evil.” Our current President Bush has spread the brush more broadly with the “Axis of Evil.”

And some of these villains were once allies. Saddam Hussein was provided with weapons and support during his war with Iraq. Manuel Noriega was practically handpicked by our intelligence agencies as the leader of Panama. Osama Bin Ladin was also provided with weapons in Afghanistan while rebels warred with Soviet soldiers.

It’s easy to see why this strategy has to be employed but in many cases it can be a blunt instrument and in other instances, it can hide larger, more troublesome problems. Creating a symbolic embodiment of evil in one person can help put the face on the “bad guys” for the media consuming public, but it can do little, in many instances, to alleviate the source of the problem.

In the case of how the Bush administration has elevated the villain status of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi into a class with our murder’s row, it causes a big problem because the insurgency is so much larger than one man. If Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is “smoked out,” will that end the insurgency? No. Even if Osama Bin Ladin is tracked down, Al Qaida will still be a threat.

It becomes a scenario that if we catch “fill in the blank,” all our troubles will be over. In the case of Iraq, catching Abu Musab al-Zarqawi will make little difference. The insurgency problem needs a broader, more systematic and long-term approach.

So, the next time America target’s a new enemy, make sure you know the difference between an enemy and a solution to a problem.

The United States: Good Old Meritocracy or Emerging Oligarchy?

2004-12-07T17:36:00.001-05:00

You see them on TV – the richest people in the world. They are captains of industry, celebrities, and famous or infamous individuals and who, for the most part, live lifestyles no middle class citizen can even dream of. And most of them live and work in America.

First, let me tell you that I’m not against wealth and I actually admire those who work hard, sacrifice, and take a risk. Entrepreneurship is at the heart of America. But could those that reach the extreme upper limits of wealth actually be hurting America?

I know many conservatives will immediately balk at this line of thinking. How could one person (or a group of people) getting rich hurt anyone? Don’t these people stimulate the economy by creating jobs, innovating, and buying lots of material goods? Certainly, but when wealth gets concentrated in such a narrow strata of our population, could it actually be tying up money in the hands of a few when it could be better spread among the many?

Many economists will say that our economy isn’t a zero-sum game. One person having a lot doesn’t take away from someone else having something. They usually point to productivity and say it is almost infinitely expandable. But these same economist also fail to examine productivity in terms of real wages and the fall of real wages since the 1960’s. (see: http://www.laborresearch.org/charts.php?id=8)

Some studies will show that real wages have, indeed, increased. If you look at these you might see a slight increase of around two percent. But if you also look at how the cost of living has increased, you can easily see how that figure has dwarfed any increases in real wages.

What I do know is that in the face of real wages is that CEO pay increased from 42 times that of the average line worker’s pay to 500 times that in a mere 20 years. Did these CEOs really earn their opulent salaries? Jack Walsh led G.E. to healthy profit margins during his tenure. Steve Jobs is a gem at elevating both Apple and Pixar. Most of their “compensation” packages are really incentive packages of treasure troves of stock options used to prod them on to actually make the best moves to increase performance and the stock’s value. But what about those that didn’t perform? Michael Ovitz of Disney was jettisoned early and walked out the door with a golden parachute of $120 million dollars worth of compensation.

The topic of CEO pay (compensation) and performance is another topic for another time. But before leaving the topic, I don’t know too many of us that wouldn’t want even a portion of their compensation packages.

And don’t get me started in the likes of a Paris Hilton, who before deciding to market herself for fame and fortune, never worked a day in her life. Add to that the fact that she would never have to work to maintain an extravagant lifestyle.

My point is what do the rich really do to earn these opulent riches? Does David Lesar (CEO of Halliburton - pictured) work harder than “Joe” who puts in 55 hours a week as his job as an accountant at the firm just off the expressway?

Let’s look at Joe. He makes just above the national average at, say, $35,000. David Lesar is pulling in a total compensation package of $7.7 million dollars. By my calculations, straight up before taxes, Joe makes around $16 an hour. David Lesar makes over $37,000 an hour.

Does David Lesar actually deliver $37,000 dollars more value an hour than our poor little “Joe?” Stock holders certainly think so. The Halliburton board certainly thinks so. And maybe Joe would be a little over matched by the job.

What I’m getting at is that the U.S. is based on a meritocractic idea. You get what you earn and deserve. Work hard, achieve and you will get what you deserve. I’m sure that David Lesar worked hard, sacrificed and made all the right moves. And maybe you don’t want Joe to manage your company. But in giving David Lesar such a big salary, could it actually concentrate a dangerous and inequitable amount of money in the hands of one person when it some of that money could be spread across dozens of hard working Joes?

Anyway, isn’t this whole concept of taking from the rich and giving it to the poor immoral, though? Am I attempting to incite class warfare? From my perspective, the class war has been and is still being fought in a subtle way throughout our culture.

My point isn’t that the government needs to punish the rich. Or that the proletariat brothers need to rise up and “de-throne” the upper crust? Or that fortunes should be ripped away from heirs because life should be more fair?

My point is that the recent revisions in tax laws have tilted the playing field away from the middle class values that our present administration keeps stating that it is supporting and have started creating an oligarchy. By concentrating wealth and creating tax structures that almost guarantee that they retain their whole pie, it takes a great deal of money out of the economy and away from people who could work to attain it.

In the meritocratic ideal, people would be rewarded for working hard, contributing to society and making sacrifices. With the new oligarchy that is being created, this idea is being diminished. David Lesar has done nothing to earn $37,000 an hour. It’s certainly beyond the pale. Paris Hilton’s family fortune was not earned by Paris Hilton. Extravagant wealth concentration is dangerous to the meritocratic ideal because it says that the rich deserve to be rich and the less fortunate deserve what they get because they aren’t smart enough, aren’t hard working enough, and just aren’t plain greedy enough.

I think that many people over simplify their arguments by stating that it’s immoral to take money away people who have worked hard to earn it. Now, usually this takes the form of an attack on the progressive tax system – it isn’t fair to tax the rich more because they’ve worked hard to get it!

I’m not saying that working hard shouldn’t be rewarded. Having productive goals to shoot for in the form of some of our high achievers is a good idea. But in our current system, we are starting to create an insular system that pools money in the hands of a few while the many see real wages shrink, health care costs erode at their take home pay, and energy costs start to take huge chunks out of their small piece of pie.

Simply put, infinite productivity isn’t possible. Trickle down economics from these oligarchs won’t sustain the country. While I don’t advocate a socialistic reform, taking pieces of the large portions of pies that the advantaged have and spreading it equitably to hard working and deserving folks makes sense to me. What do you think?

Big Government vs. Big Corporations

2004-11-19T16:52:00.000-05:00

You’ve probably seen the bumper sticker, “I love my country, but I fear my government.” What does this mean?!? I wonder what the government has really done to the person who has the bumper sticker? They pay a marginally higher tax rate? They can’t own armor piercing shells for their automatic mini-canon?

President Reagan popularized a disdain and, yes, possibly fomented a hatred of the government. He saw government as a meddling, overwhelming, and intrusive force – one that was badly mismanaged. He had some points about mismanagement. He had some points about its intrusive influence – at times.

And yes, the government hasn’t always been a benevolent force. Certainly, they have overstepped their bounds in some instances.

But, if you look at the Reagan years in government, government spending seemed to increase every year as did the number of government employees. Spending, in fact, skyrocketed on Reagan’s watch as did the deficit. Civilian government employee payrolls increased from around 2.7 million to well over 3 million by the time Reagan got out of office.

[Government spending chart: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GovernmentSpending.html]

[Government Employment stats: http://www.opm.gov/feddata/factbook/html/fb-p08.htm]

There seems to be some dissonance here in what Reagan stated and what he practiced. But this is another issue for another time.

The question is; who do you really want on your side? Big Government or Big Corporations?

The core reason for a corporation can be summed up simply, to make a profit. I have nothing against profit, as long as it is done ethically, humanely and with a holistic eye on how they do business affects the greater good. Certainly, there are ethical corporations -- ones that place their customers and employees first and make sure they don’t spoil our environment and contribute generously to the communities they inhabit.

But there are just as many that see profit as the soul reason for existence and abandon almost all their ethics and morals to obtain and maintain a profit. The corporate scandal sheet seems endless. Examine the soul of Enron and you will see an entity devoid of compassion, caring, and anything that resembles concern for anything but greed.

To see a list of the most recent corporate scandals, check out:
http://www.forbes.com/2002/07/25/accountingtracker.html

And this list just includes corporations that have nurtured and carried on with unethical and illegal accounting practices. What about those corporations that have sacrificed our health in order to boost their bottom line?

Big tobacco lied unconvincingly to congress stating that nicotine wasn’t addictive. That they weren’t targeting teen smokers with their advertising. It seems to me that there was very little they wouldn’t do to protect and enhance their bottom line.

Merck claimed that it only had the health of the consumer in mind when it forced Vioxx through the FDA approval process only to discover less than few years later that the drug contributed to the deaths of nearly 28,000 people and severe health consequences for countless others.

It has become abundantly clear to me that there are entirely too many companies that would sell their customers, their employees, and their country to maintain a profit.

Who stood in the way of the intimidating influence of the big tobacco? David Kessler of the F.D.A.

Who passed the Sarbane-Oxley bill that changed the way corporations did their accounting and protected millions of worker’s pensions? Our U.S. congress.

I’m not saying that there aren’t pork barrel projects that take liberties with our tax dollars. Certainly, better oversight and fiscal discipline is needed, but in the end, we elect a public official to represent our best interest. A corporation is created and maintained to make a profit. Again, profit isn’t a four letter word, but if I’m walking down a figurative dark alley, I know who I’d want to be with me. Do you?

Is it Time for a Right Turn for the Democrats?

2004-11-12T11:52:00.001-05:00

Obviously, the elections didn’t go the way the democratic party wanted. Of course, they’re huddling right now – looking for scapegoats, complaining about strategies, pointing fingers, and trying to find a winning direction. But which direction should they go?

There are stalwarts in the party that are going to advocate that the party didn’t energize its base. They didn’t work hard enough to appeal enough to the far left and party loyalists and the only way to find a winning way would be to stay with their base.

In an election where ABB (Anybody but Bush) was recognized by the vast majority on the left, it comes down to the question of whether you won the hearts and minds of your loyalists or whether you have enough loyalists? I would argue that there just aren't enough members of the base. The political compass of the country has shifted to right and sentiments of the nation are firmly rooted in "conservative values." Whatever that means. But whatever it means, it's time to take notice and start re-thinking strategies.

I don’t know if this shift dates back to the “Reagan Revolution” or not, but I strongly suspect that it does. If you look back over the history of the United States, you can see shifts. F.D.R. and his liberal ideals ruled the day for over two decades. Then there was a shift to the right with Ike. Then a shift back with Kennedy and L.B.J. Then Nixon and the temporary backlash from his debacle that caused a momentary shift back to the left, but I think you could just argue that Carter’s election more of a reaction to the unsettled landscape left in the wake of Watergate.

Reagan brought a simple assurance into the office that permeated the country. People like simple ideas. Where people stand on base issues is simple for them to determine.

Abortion – Pro Life or Pro-Choice
Gay Marriage – for or against
Taxes – lower or lower

These are simple issues to decide – what Republicans might call fundamental values. Throw the complexity of solving the problems of Social Security and Health Care at the populace and they have no idea what to do. The Clinton Health Plan was over 1300 pages long. It’s that sort of complexity that puts voters as a distance.

The problem with the left is that they fail to focus on the simple issues like the morality of a living wage. Like the widening gap between the rich and the poor. And so on.

And it’s not just focusing on simple issues. They don’t need to abandon their protection of the issues of the women’s right to choose and gay rights, but they had better put those items on the back burner and focus on the “kitchen table” issues that Clinton was able to capitalize on and attempt to capture a broader base of voters than what was typically in their court in the past.

You’ve already lost this fours years in the White House and quite a few seats in the congress. Don’t you think it’s time to win? The only way to do that is to take a step to the center. Notice, I didn’t say right. The center is where the democrats can win.

What do you think? Is a move to the right an apostasy for democrats? Or is it a realistic move to make?

Moral Taxes? Yes.

2004-11-09T16:46:00.000-05:00

At the heart of many of my conservative friend’s fundamental beliefs is that taxes are immoral. Check out many conservative web sites and print publications and you will see opinions ranging from the sensible and reasonable to outright rants. The latter usually lead to how “liberal” taxes plans are ruining the country.

First, some facts:
1. Out of the top industrialized countries, America and Japan have the lowest tax rates
2. Our current tax rates are the lowest in 50 years

So, in relative terms, we aren’t being taxed that much.

I heard a comments somewhere the other day that American, as generalized population are philosophically conservative, but operationally liberal. I tend to agree with this. When I look at my paycheck and see a big hunk being siphoned off to taxes, I sigh. But what’s a guy to do?

In response to negative comments about taxes, I ask my conservative friends if they like police protection, fire departments, an armed forces that protects and defends our country (and our ideals), safe drinking water….the list could go on. So some agree that they do like these and this leads to eventual and begrudging acceptance that not all taxes are bad. While others go to insane extremes that they either want someone else to pay for services that they get or have elaborate pay for services programs like: Want to use a public tennis court, insert a quarter for 25 minutes worth of play time. And so on.

It’s like they would like a line item veto on how their tax dollars are spent. I would too.

Back when I was more liberal, I didn’t want my tax dollars to go to defense. Of course, that line item veto option didn’t come on my 1040. And I’m happy it didn’t. I want us to be united as a country and, baby, taxes are one thing that unites us – whether we like them or not.

I’m not for unbridled taxes. And there are plenty of tax dollars going to pork barrel projects all over the country. Want to see a list? Check out the Heritage Foundations list on this site:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These projects merely build on the $20 billion spent on more than 8,000 similar programs in fiscal year 2002, including:
$273,000 to help Blue Springs, Missouri, combat teenage "Goth culture";
$1,500,000 for a statue of the Roman god Vulcan in Birmingham, Alabama;
$1,000,000 for an "Intelligent Transportation" grant for Moscow, Idaho--population 22,000;
$50,000 to fund a tattoo removal program in San Luis Obispo County, California;
$26,000 to study how thoroughly Americans rinse their dishes; and
$4,572 to Las Vegas Helicopters (LVH), which performs airborne weddings officiated by Elvis Presley impersonators, as part of the post-September 11 package of aid to airlines.

(http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/bg1622.cfm)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, what is really at the heart of their argument? It’s that progressive taxes are immoral.

Their argument goes something like this: “Why is it fair that if someone works hard, takes a risk, and sacrifices and finally after years of toil, makes it, and then we (the government, the liberals) come in and say that he/she has to pay a higher tax rate than everyone else? Do they get a higher level of service from the police? Does their tap water taste better?”

It’s a simple argument with a lot of credence. No, they don’t get more for their money. But where did their money come from in the first place? Okay, not from the government, I admit, but from an economic environment that has been, in part created by a working tax system.

Here’s one piece of anecdotal evidence that I witnessed first hand.

I worked with an instructor at the college (a private college) where I work to help set-up a global trade videoconference. We linked to government satellite offices in 3 different countries (Canada, Argentina, and one other place – maybe in Africa – my memory fails me). In attendance at this conference were probably around 20 or more small business. Now given their own devices, these small companies would never have had the ability to create these linkages between their businesses and opportunities in these countries.

Taxes become a “force multiplier.” You take a few pennies (ok, an understatement) from everyone and pull it together into one synergistic effort and you create a way for everyone to benefit.

In my example, the small business operator through the help of government satellite office in foreign lands a contact with someone that opens a new market for them. The small business builds sales, employs more people, and expands opportunities. On their own, who know I they could make this connection.

My summary argument is that, in America, we have built the most prosperous nation on the earth by balancing out an idea of getting ahead through hard work and taking care of underprivileged quite well. It is this system that creates an environment that allows someone to work hard, sacrifice and takes risks to get ahead. These people do not create this opportunity in a vacuum. The construct of our society allows for it.

So, I won’t ask people to turn a blind eye. Yes, there needs to be accountability, but taxes are not immoral. I end with a quote from David Cay Johnson who wrote the book, “Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich -- and Cheat Everybody Else.”

"Taxes are the means by which we decide how we're going to finance maintaining our democracy, who pays and how much, how the burdens are distributed."

Come up with a better system and people will listen.

Think first, act later,
Random

Iraq War Flip-Flop, Maybe?

2004-11-05T14:00:00.001-05:00

When it was first considered, I felt that invading Iraq was a good idea. Not for any of the reasons put forth by the Bush administration. Weapons of mass destruction, Saddam’s collaboration with terrorists, etc.. These motivations are not what motivated me.

I liked the idea of the Iraqi people being liberated from the tyrannical rule of Saddam Hussein. After 26+ years of being under “house arrest” as a country, I felt we (the U.S.) had some responsibility as the most prosperous and powerful nation on the planet to do something.

I had supported our efforts in Kosovo to end the ethnic cleansings there. I supported our humanitarian activities in Somalia. It seemed consist to support the liberation of an oppressed people.

Now, you may ask, why Iraq? Aren’t there many other countries we could help?

I have this handy fire chief metaphor I like to use in response to these type questions. If you’re a fire chief and you come to a city block full of buildings on fire, you have prioritize which building you want to put out first.

You look at which building is most important to the interests of the city -- hospital, a munitions factory, the bank, etc.. You ascertain which building can be put out. If the bowling alley is engulfed, let it go. Which building has the most people who need rescue?

In taking this metaphor into real like, you ask, why not North Korea? Well, they have a huge, heavily armed military. They have nuclear weapons. You can’t put that fire out. Why not the Sudan (Darfur)? I think we do need to insert some sort of calming presence there, but it doesn’t have the critical factors when it comes to our national security.

Iraq had invaded Kuwait in the previous decade. The Hussein regime had killed an estimated 300,000 of its people after that because they were dissidents. Human rights, freedom of speech, or any privileges we have in the U.S. are unheard of there.

On top of that, there was a good chance that they had aided terrorists or could be a breeding ground for them.

As much as my initial knee-jerk reaction is to oppose any military initiative that sounds pre-emptive, I studied the situation from several angles and decided that it was a good idea.

Today, I’m not sure I would.

Okay, you can call me a flip-flopper. I call myself a rational, thinking individual. If you go down a dark alley every day and get mugged, you decide not to down that alley anymore.

I think that war has been terribly handled. We don’t have enough troops. Not enough emphasis was put on what to do after their military is toppled. We failed to understand the cultural problem post-invasion and conquest.

Maybe it’s not the war itself I regret supporting, but the prosecution. The training of Iraqi’s new army is floundering. “New” Iraqi soldiers seemed to have either bulls eyes on their backs or become our newly trained enemies when they defect to insurgents.

And I definitely don’t want to see it as first step to an expanded military interventionist policy to re-shape the Mid East. Which I strongly suspect is the ultimate goal of the “Vulcans” in the Bush administration.

Obviously, we can’t go back in time, but we need to be honest about the situation. President Bush is trying to paint a positive picture of the situation and who blames, but it is pretty bleak. Since the toppling of Saddam, the situation in Iraq has spiraled down and out of control. The “Plan” is way off-course and having the conviction to stick with it doesn’t make him sound commanding, it makes him sound ignorant. I wouldn’t look down on him, if he said we need to make a major course change, but it’s difficult to support a stubborn course when you know it leads to disaster – repeatedly.

Come up with a new plan and I might stay on board. If not, and I’m flip-flopping. It’s my prerogative, I’m an American, not an Iraqi.

Post Election Musings and Wrong Directions

2004-11-04T09:07:00.000-05:00

I spent last evening with a low grade depression. Never before in my life have I felt the after effects of an election as profoundly as I have felt this one.

Why do I think this election was so important? Because I see a direction being taken for our country that I think is dangerous. Because I’m afraid that this administration will take the victory and claim it is a mandate of the people. When, in fact, he got over barely 50% of the vote.

If you or I were in an election with our friends and families voting and we got just over barely 50% of the folks voting, we would feel that we would need to do some consensus building.

I’m afraid that this administration will take its “mandate” and open up the “activist” foreign policy – meaning expanding the war. If you want to learn more about the neo-con’s activist military positions you can listen to interviews of David Frum and Richard Pearle who wrote the book, “An End to Evil,” at these sites:

WBUR On Point interview:
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2004/01/20040109_a_main.asp

KUOW Weekday interview:
http://www.kuow.org/defaultProgram.asp?ID=4956

You can either look at their stance as bold or dangerous. I tend toward the latter. I think that if you examine the war in Iraq in detail, you will see that there is a true lack of understanding of the culture in the Mid East. This failure to examine the affects and backlash of an occupation of Iraq is evident in the increase of casualties of our troops and the utter lack of safety civilian contractors are experiencing.

The hawkish neo-cons stance is to expand our foreign policy by use of military might rather than through diplomacy or cultivating multi-national efforts. They base their premise on the fact protecting our country gives them a blank check to do whatever they want. They feel that the only way to defeat the terrorist is to take the war to them. I think that Israel has been attempting this stance for 40+ years and look where it’s got them – suicide bombers on buses and in markets on a regular basis.

It’s my opinion that this will further erode America’s political standing in the world and take away any moral high ground we had. (But, in all reality, almost all of that high ground was lost when we prosecuted a pre-emptive war in Iraq.)

We don’t have the military might. I can see that our military is already at a breaking point. If they do an dramatic expansion of our military efforts (invade Iran), then a draft will be mandatory.

Well, that’s my limited take on the foreign policy ramifications of these election results. What do you think? Are you as depressed as me?

Post Election Blues and Ramblings

2004-11-03T17:08:00.001-05:00

Earlier in the day, the big question for me was why did all these new voters come out and vote? The only reason I could see was that they were out as a vote for change. I was wrong. The Republicans did just as a good a job as the Democrats in getting out the vote. Plus, I heard that too many of the young voters are tending to vote conservative.

The scary thing is that the issue that mattered most in their vote was moral issues. The democrats cannot win at this part of the game. It basically came down to abortion and the civil unions. The country is in a conservative dip right now and unless the left is ready to sacrifice some of it's core values (or bend some), it's going to be hard to be elected.

I'm surprised that the war didn't resonate more with voters, but I would say that most people have recognized that there is no going back -- we are there and we have to stay to finish the job.

Also, I must say that I think that the democrats got on the wrong horse. Kerry just didn't have the broad appeal. If you look at where he won -- democratic strongholds and in the north east. You have to have someone like Bill Clinton that would carry a few southern states. I think Edwards would have done a better job with that, but obviously, as VP, he didn't have much pull. People vote for a president, not a vice president.

Here's my suggestion for the democratic party - run Evan Bayh, senator from Indiana. He could get Indiana and, maybe Ohio. He has a moderate record and that is how Clinton won as a centrist. Bayh has been a governor and a senator. So, he has both state and national experience. On the moral issue area, he has a mixed record on abortion -- voting for the ban on partial birth abortions.

If you pair Bayh with the right running mate, then maybe that could garner enough votes to get over this conservation national swing. He would need a Southerner like Edwards and then, maybe they could pull it off.

Speaking of Edwards, what is he going to do for the next four years? He's not a senator anymore. How can he maintain his public identity when he has no spotlight. He doesn't have the political gravitas to do what Reagan did and get syndicated radio time to keep his name in the news. Plus he doesn't have a winning ideology (conservatives) like Reagan did.

On the bright side, had Kerry been elected, then he would have inherited a huge mess with Iraq without a lot of options. I think that Iraq will be the millstone around Bush's neck and if he keep listening to the hawkish neo-cons, the situation will only get worse, The fall out from the next four years will give the democrats enough fodder to fuel insurgent moderates to check their alliances.

On the whole, I'm disappointed, but the country will survive.

Wait, news bulletin -- Country Dead. Bush election kills country. The surgeon general pronounced America dead as of 4:35 AM on November 3 as a result of brain damage.....