Thursday, July 28, 2011
Extreme heat, climate change, debt limit, continuing job loss: we’ve got trouble in River City and beyond
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Friday July 22 was so hot that the New York Yankees cancelled batting practice. Their opponents Oakland Athletics did not, which may account for the 17-7 Yankee win. The first pitch was thrown when the temperature hit 100, and so it continued for the three plus hours. The team trainers could not remember such heat, and neither did manager Joe Girardi, though he had an experience years ago, when players were given lettuce leaves (Iceberg?) to wear under their helmets, for coolness.
The members of the Republican House caucus should probably wear the lettuce, to bring them back from the heat daze, probably brought on by the excess carbon in the air, generated by their favorite energy producers, coal burning electricity systems. This may account for the ideological inability to compromise on debt limit. The carbon caused greenhouse effect was last amplified by George W. Bush, who disregarded his EPA’s advice and did not build a carbon control system. Now we are all paying for that with our health, breathing poisonous excess ozone.
This country is basically suffering in three areas of economics, of budget excesses, inability to raise the debt limit and continuing job loss. All parties agree that debt limit need be raised but the GOP/tea party luddites want to pay for it almost solely by cutting government costs, with the House leadership shiftimg back and forth on the issue ofaccepting the fact that increased revenue is a most important source. The ideology of solely cutting costs is boosted by Grover Norquist, a financier who in 1985 founded the Americans for Tax Reform, a government hating organization of almost religious intensity (think radical Islam) who stated that he wants to reduce government enough to drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub. He claims that President Reagan blessed him, the same president who in his day condemned the Congress for obstructing his efforts to raise the debt limit, an action he needed to avoid the US having to renege on payments and potentially starting a world wide recession. Now Norquist, who pays himself well for the part-time job (he also has a string of other poetical organizations a nod a hedge fund to run) has had all the GOP presidential candidates and many Cogresspeople sign a “no new taxes” pledge, and wows to slap down any legislator or candidate who has a “yes but” suggestion to increment revenue that looks like taxation. He slaps them down “like a freshman who finds excuses to ask to go to the prom, after being told that it is a no-no.” He accompanies the words with a slapping body language, appropriate to the imperious leader that he is.
What is not realized by Norquist's single-minded disciples is that his protection of business is destroying US manufacturing, now down to 8 or 9 percent of the GDP, and that wholesale cutting of government services is destroying jobs and economic recovery. Or is that their political objective, risk hurting the country to stop the Democrats?
All of us know, from media disclosures, that big business firms, e. g. GE and the oil companies, instead of paying the maximum 35 percent income tax, have managed to reduce it by deductions, even to zero. Further, clever accountants work hard to convert ordinary income to a 15 percent capital gains taxability A most costly gesture of favoring business emigration offshore and continuing loss of American jobs has been our support of China’s 1979 change to market –oriented economy.
It started with President Richard Nixon’s visiting China, invited by Premier Chou Enlai, in 1972, and US recognition of its government as the sole ruling power in 1979. President Mao Zedong died in 1976, and Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping effected the economic turnaround, inviting the capitalist world to invest in China, exploiting its cheap labor, provided that the technology and research also be shared with the Chinese. What followed was an anti-Ricardoan economic shift, massive transfer form expensive unionized manufacturing from the US to China, $600 billion US trade deficit with China, and US government condoned hiding of corporate profits earned and sequestered abroad. A tax amnesty of such billions of such hidden funds in 2004, instead of the expected revival of US manufacturing and jobs, induced more offshoring and boosted corporate dividends. This process continues, and the “no new taxes” religion-like insistence, spearheaded by the 80-odd new Congresspeople, mostly tea party ideologues and apostles, continues to destroy US economy. If you are looking for evidence, think of the solar panel industry, a US invention, which is collapsing in the US because of China’s provided cheap imports, sponsored by US industry and protected by trade agreements that help China in keeping the value of its renmibi and yuan low (no violation of the WTO rules, claims China).. The last US panel maker, Evergreen in Boston area, recipient of $millions of taxpayer support, is moving to Wuhan in central China, losing 800 jobs locally and thousands of jobs country-wide.
Even the GOP leaders, recognizing the need for raising the debt limit to preclude US and worldwide recession if we renege on our debt obligations, only want a two step procedure with a resstricted ability to raise the debt limit, one that postpones the damage, maybe, with the added risk of a ratings loss. This is not enough for the protection of our economy. The GOP politicians will risk the US economy to gain power for their party, protecting their corporate sponsors and putting the burdens of balancing the budget on the middle class fellow citizens, recipients of Social Securitedicare and Medicaid. all this accompanied by more job loss. We are doomed, if this ideology wins in 2012.
Friday July 22 was so hot that the New York Yankees cancelled batting practice. Their opponents Oakland Athletics did not, which may account for the 17-7 Yankee win. The first pitch was thrown when the temperature hit 100, and so it continued for the three plus hours. The team trainers could not remember such heat, and neither did manager Joe Girardi, though he had an experience years ago, when players were given lettuce leaves (Iceberg?) to wear under their helmets, for coolness.
The members of the Republican House caucus should probably wear the lettuce, to bring them back from the heat daze, probably brought on by the excess carbon in the air, generated by their favorite energy producers, coal burning electricity systems. This may account for the ideological inability to compromise on debt limit. The carbon caused greenhouse effect was last amplified by George W. Bush, who disregarded his EPA’s advice and did not build a carbon control system. Now we are all paying for that with our health, breathing poisonous excess ozone.
This country is basically suffering in three areas of economics, of budget excesses, inability to raise the debt limit and continuing job loss. All parties agree that debt limit need be raised but the GOP/tea party luddites want to pay for it almost solely by cutting government costs, with the House leadership shiftimg back and forth on the issue ofaccepting the fact that increased revenue is a most important source. The ideology of solely cutting costs is boosted by Grover Norquist, a financier who in 1985 founded the Americans for Tax Reform, a government hating organization of almost religious intensity (think radical Islam) who stated that he wants to reduce government enough to drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub. He claims that President Reagan blessed him, the same president who in his day condemned the Congress for obstructing his efforts to raise the debt limit, an action he needed to avoid the US having to renege on payments and potentially starting a world wide recession. Now Norquist, who pays himself well for the part-time job (he also has a string of other poetical organizations a nod a hedge fund to run) has had all the GOP presidential candidates and many Cogresspeople sign a “no new taxes” pledge, and wows to slap down any legislator or candidate who has a “yes but” suggestion to increment revenue that looks like taxation. He slaps them down “like a freshman who finds excuses to ask to go to the prom, after being told that it is a no-no.” He accompanies the words with a slapping body language, appropriate to the imperious leader that he is.
What is not realized by Norquist's single-minded disciples is that his protection of business is destroying US manufacturing, now down to 8 or 9 percent of the GDP, and that wholesale cutting of government services is destroying jobs and economic recovery. Or is that their political objective, risk hurting the country to stop the Democrats?
All of us know, from media disclosures, that big business firms, e. g. GE and the oil companies, instead of paying the maximum 35 percent income tax, have managed to reduce it by deductions, even to zero. Further, clever accountants work hard to convert ordinary income to a 15 percent capital gains taxability A most costly gesture of favoring business emigration offshore and continuing loss of American jobs has been our support of China’s 1979 change to market –oriented economy.
It started with President Richard Nixon’s visiting China, invited by Premier Chou Enlai, in 1972, and US recognition of its government as the sole ruling power in 1979. President Mao Zedong died in 1976, and Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping effected the economic turnaround, inviting the capitalist world to invest in China, exploiting its cheap labor, provided that the technology and research also be shared with the Chinese. What followed was an anti-Ricardoan economic shift, massive transfer form expensive unionized manufacturing from the US to China, $600 billion US trade deficit with China, and US government condoned hiding of corporate profits earned and sequestered abroad. A tax amnesty of such billions of such hidden funds in 2004, instead of the expected revival of US manufacturing and jobs, induced more offshoring and boosted corporate dividends. This process continues, and the “no new taxes” religion-like insistence, spearheaded by the 80-odd new Congresspeople, mostly tea party ideologues and apostles, continues to destroy US economy. If you are looking for evidence, think of the solar panel industry, a US invention, which is collapsing in the US because of China’s provided cheap imports, sponsored by US industry and protected by trade agreements that help China in keeping the value of its renmibi and yuan low (no violation of the WTO rules, claims China).. The last US panel maker, Evergreen in Boston area, recipient of $millions of taxpayer support, is moving to Wuhan in central China, losing 800 jobs locally and thousands of jobs country-wide.
Even the GOP leaders, recognizing the need for raising the debt limit to preclude US and worldwide recession if we renege on our debt obligations, only want a two step procedure with a resstricted ability to raise the debt limit, one that postpones the damage, maybe, with the added risk of a ratings loss. This is not enough for the protection of our economy. The GOP politicians will risk the US economy to gain power for their party, protecting their corporate sponsors and putting the burdens of balancing the budget on the middle class fellow citizens, recipients of Social Securitedicare and Medicaid. all this accompanied by more job loss. We are doomed, if this ideology wins in 2012.
Labels: Chou Enlai, Grover Norquist, Joe Girardi, Richard Nixon
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 8:23 AM 
