Government is Soooo Bad…

Republicans keep saying, “business is good, government is bad.”

The financial services industry (Wall Street, The Market, etc…) used mortgages and mortgage based ‘investment instruments’ to crater the US economy in 1986 and 2007; both times bailed out using 100s of billions of taxpayer’s dollars!

These bail-outs are socialized failure for the very same financial services casinos on Wall Street that had pocketed enormous sums of other people’s money pretending to create more and bigger short term wealth from the 15 or 30 year investments that are home mortgages.

Mortgages are most often 30 year investments for average consumers buying a home.  Mortgage payments are structured in a manner that requires federal, and some state, government subsidies (income tax deductions) to be acceptable to consumers.

Isn’t it interesting that a political party, so vocal about the success of private businesses, insist that huge quantities of public funds from the big, bad government be funneled directly to rescuing those same businesses when they are found caught in traps of their own making.   

The Fiscal 'Bump' Debate

The current debate about the economy, the fiscal bump, at the US Congress is at a standstill because the Republicans want cuts in two major federal programs, but they want the Democrats to specify what will be cut.

Why?

Because the current iteration of the Republican party is a congregation of angry, old, white people and the programs they want to cut are extremely popular with these constituents; the programs: Medicare and Social Security.

The Republicans will not outline cuts because they want to be able to turn to their base and say, “the Democrats did it!”

It is tremendously dishonest Republican maneuvering because the majority of their base (especially the old, white people), and the vast majority of Democratic supporters, don’t want cuts to either Medicare or Social Security at all.

This post is asking the President and Democrats, in the US Congress, to stand firm; raise revenues, end the second war (paid for with debt) and make cuts to the military budget where the Defense Department has suggested.

Reasons to Vote for Me...

There are many reasons that voters from TX 31^st US House district should vote for me. First, I've signed no pledges that will hamper my ability to work on the best solution to any given problem. I'm not indebted to any large donors, PACs or Super PACs. I am free to represent the voters in Bell and Williamson counties that comprise this district.

If elected there will be attempts made to improve on health care. The copy of Romney care, from MA, now called the Affordable Health-care Act (AHA), a.k.a. Obama care, is a step in the correct direction. The Individual mandate, from the conservative Heritage Foundation, will be merged into the intended end product: Medicare for all, a.k.a.: Single Payer Health care (SPH). SPH will return family planning to a discussion between a family and their doctor. SPH will also cover our military veterans, and their families, who are finding VA hospitals to be overwhelmed by the effects of America's two, most recent wars: Iraq and Afghanistan.

The DREAM Act, proposed by Republicans around ten tears ago, will finally become law. The action of parents, who brought their young children with them when they came to the USA illegally, should not be held against young people who have known only life in these United States.

Laws that emerged in the aftermath of the Great Depression, including Glass-Steagall (taken off the books between 1980 and 1999), will return to law. The restoration of these laws will help insure that the Recession of 1986 and the Great Recession of 2007, caused by mortgage-based meddling in the entire financial services sector of our economy, will not be able to recur.

Mortgages, the only secured loans that are not, will become a concern of the bankruptcy court system. This will allow issues similar to the problems associated with sub-prime and adjusted rate mortgages to be recognized before the situation might get out of control again.

We must refocus on planning, installing, operating, maintaining and replacing common carrier infrastructure: roads, bridges, water, sewer, electric and telecommunications facilities. These things will return to the prominent stature they held over thirty years ago.

The funding of public education, pre-K through post graduate, will also return to the level of importance it too had attained more than thirty years ago.

I believe this will be the basis of what is needed to best serve the voters of this district and restore the government of these United States of America to its proper role: investing in the basic needs that have allowed this country to rise to become the world's largest economy and the only Super-power.

This will push the US Congress to rise above its current 10% approval rating.

This will give, “Hope and Change,” a Chance ...and a Push!

Register and Vote.

Congress Does Nothing, Again!

The AEA (American Energy Alliance - of oil interests) complains that the wind-based energy generation companies should be able to succeed without a billion dollars in annual tax credits; Production Tax Credits (PTC).  The AEA represents century old, incredibly profitable oil companies that have billions of dollars in quarterly (every three months) profits and multiple billions of dollars in annual tax credits themselves.

The US Congress responded in typical fashion, by doing nothing, and have, in doing nothing, implied that they will allow the wind-based energy credits to expire on December 31st of this year; the oil industry's subsidies survive untouched.

This is the same congress that has not allowed a much needed second stimulus bill to be passed and sent to the President.  This congress recently failed to pass a smaller stimulus bill that would have helped our military veterans get jobs after completing their service to our country.  Veteran's job experience is poorly understood by non-military employers and is causing them to have a larger than average, post-service, unemployment problem.

The European countries that share a common currency (the Euro Zone and the Euro respectively) have adopted a strategy of austerity that is causing all their economies to drop into the second dip of a double-dip recession.  The US Congress is, by inaction and otherwise, also causing the USA to pursue a similar course of austerity.  The Republicans in the congress have expressed, and followed through, on a strategy of doing whatever it takes, including refusing to actually do anything, to deny the current president a second term.  If it means the US economy will follow the Euro Zone into the second dip of a double-dip economic recession our congress simply shrugs!

Register and vote to replace a congress, so callous to their own constituents that they put no damage to our country above their own megalomania.

The Continuing Saga of Very Basic Economics...

Capitalism's roots extend back to a Scottish economist and enlightenment philosopher named Adam Smith. Smith's hypothesis on economics, the economics of his time were driven by the mechanisms of imperial and mercantile systems, emphasized the underlying motivation of self-interest driven business markets. The theory was specified in the classic tome: Wealth of Nations; first published in the mid eighteenth century and revised, by Smith, in multiple follow-up editions.

As an enlightened thinker Mr. Smith waxed philosophically about the potential for use and abuse of self-interest driven markets by various characteristics of human nature; outlined extensively in the companion tome: The Theory of Moral Sentiments; also published in the mid eighteenth century and followed by Smith's multiple revised editions.

The potential benefits and reservations about self-interest driven economics are, simply put: enlightened and unenlightened, respectively, self-interest. This post will deal with three aspects of unenlightened self-interest: deregulation, monopolies and private equity.

Deregulation

In a deregulated market the potential to manipulate prices, via supply and demand calculations, can spur companies to take capacity off-line for increased profitability. That's why deregulation appeals to product or service vendors while delivering few, if any, oft promised benefits to the consumer (see also, Wikipedia articles on: deregulation and Enron).

Monopolies

A monopoly is when a single company has 70%, or more, of the market for any product or service. A monopoly position allows a company to thwart competition by driving prices lower. This tactic does not allow a perspective competitor the kind of profit necessary to ramp up their own product in a new market. As soon as the competitor is believed on the edge of failing out of said market prices will return to, or rise above, previous levels. Monopolies are not pursued for the customer's benefit, without regard for any promise to the contrary (see also, Wikipedia articles on: monopoly and Microsoft).

Private Equity

Private equity (PE) exists to make money for its executives and their investors, in that order. You can, and private equity does, make money finding companies that are going to be most profitable as scrapped and salvaged entities. If you're on the receiving end of this trade, employed by or purchasing after, the process may seem more like plunder and pillage.

It is important to remember that there is nothing about job creation in the definition of PE. While scrap and salvage is often the fastest way for PE to make money, it is not the only way. Employees of a PE owned business will continue to have a job only if their function can not be outsourced to a least-cost (read: low wage with a flexible regulatory environment) country; often mainland, communist, China.

Anybody who buys a company from PE needs to be aware that the company will be stripped down and all the short term profit will have been taken out pre – PE – voiusly (see also, Wikipedia articles on: Private equity firm, Bain Capital and Albert J. Dunlap).

None of the three forms of unenlightened capitalism are intentionally vicious to any party, nor are they illegal, but they do add significant emphasis to the old adage, “Caveat emptor (buyer beware).”

What of Medicare and Social Security?

What becomes of Medicare?

My plan for health care is Medicare for all (a.k.a., Single Payer Health Care) because it eliminates the for profit insurance companies from the health care loop. This is important because the primary concern of a profitable insurance company is growing profitability, not caring for the customers. Medicare has been very efficient at providing for services to seniors, because service is its primary reason to exist. I will propose extending that kind of service to everybody.

Keeping Medicare a program for seniors only, and privatizing it, is bad policy because seniors are prone to becoming increasingly expensive customers; not the people a profitable company can afford to serve. My wife and I both have, “pre-existing conditions,” so we peg the expense meter on insurance companies' actuarial charts. We are far from alone.  Many folks (young, old and in between) have one condition or another making them all expensive to insure, so privatizing (giving Medicare to for profit insurance companies) does not register as a good idea with my campaign.

What about Social Security?

Social security will come under tremendous fiscal pressure as my generation (74 million Baby Boomers) retire. That was actually anticipated in the Reagan administration; payroll tax rates were increased and more money than needed was collected. The excess money was not put into a safe place and was instead borrowed by the legislature, special treasury notes (the Congressional Budget Office refers to them as, "permission to spend money") were issued.

Some have said that the solution is to privatize (give to for profit companies) the entire Social Security program; how much of the, "permission to spend," would be paid out is never mentioned. Private companies would supposedly invest the money in the market and pay out from the returns on said investments. Individual savings and 401k monies are already invested in said markets, and o'er the last 30 years have grown and shrunk in a recurring series of economic cycles that cause a roller coaster to pale by comparison. I don't think putting Social Security funds on that same private ride is anything but a really bad idea.

Partial History of the First Term...

The constant theme of the Republicans running for government office is that the economy is bad, and that President Obama has done nothing to improve the situation.

Well, let’s review a bit of history (courtesy of Politico):

Here’s John Boehner, the likely speaker if Republicans take the House, offering his plans for Obama’s agenda: “We're going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell summed up his plan to National Journal: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

(Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44311.html#ixzz24IpViCDZ)

Remember, that our federal government's power is divided into three separate branches (executive, legislative and judicial), so that no one of them can do much on its own.

The Republican policy is known as self-fulfilling prophecy.