Looking Ahead

looking ahead by ally Dobelis Union Square, the birthplace of Labor Day; conventions Labor Day is really intimately connected to our area, particularly Union Square. It was in September 1882 that local labor leaders convened a major parade there, which eventually led to President Grower Cleveland signing the Labor Day holiday into law in 1894 (thank you, Jack Taylor). So we are all actually celebrating the 130th anniversary of the event that gave the name and characterized our neighborhood. And it continues, with Mayday celebrations annually spreading the word, whether it is“union forever,” Socialism or pure Americanism. interspersed with such impromptu events the as end of the Big War, the Rosenberg verdict, and Occupy Wall Street. The subject came up conversationally, as a senior businessman friend called to complain about Liberals leading this country to ruin. It was an opportunity of letting off steam for him, but this time I managed to lead the talk to uncover the causes. Well, it turned out that trade unions, food stamps and Socialist/Communist persuasions of President Obama drove this engine. Trade unionism was a big source of outright disasters for my correspondent, the fact that in most states, municipal governments are in near bankruptcy, having enacted over the years many retirement laws providing the government employees with health and pension benefits that were not funded, approved by politicians in search of support – municipal workers have families with voting members -, and besides, the rules that determine pensions are often based on last five years’ pay that also including overtime. That has driven the rates skyward. Some governors, such as Andrew Cuomo, have negotiated supplemental contributions and reductions, others, such as Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Rick Scott of Florida are tampering with the rights of collective bargaining. AFL/CIO was also mentioned as having driven up labor costs, making manufacturers move offshore or perish. That is only partially true, there’s also unfair competition, and China , Japan etc buying treasuries, thus financing US purchases. Here’s where US government needs action; the GOP cutting taxes does not induce US manufacturers to build industries that will just lose the investment because of our high pay rates. Textiles, technical and hardware makers are forever losers to foreign competition (remember, manufacturing drop from 50% to 17%, this much for tax cuts since 1950s building jobs). Actually, government support is really needed for new industries, and this is being pooh-poohed by the GOP, who keep harping on a losing energy company that Obama backed. Meanwhile, the unions are also learning to adjust, under the threat of offshoring or bankruptcy (their membership is down from 35 to 11% of the work force, since 1950s). My correspondent apparently used food stamps as an example of the President’s bailout practice failing, pinpointing some of his neighbors driving very expensive cars to the grocery store to cash in their coupons. We did not even get to discussing his plaint of overly long unemployment insurance coverage and the purported fakers taking advantage of it. Our next topic was Communist and Socialist directions of the Obama government. The fact that Obama was a community organizer was highlighted, and his early Radical advisers noted. This led to a hinted comparison to the rise of Mussolini in Italy before WWII, and methods of dictators in overthrowing elected governments, a totally unexpected direction. At this point my correspondent closed the talk. This conversation left me quite disquietened, realizing that that an educated and highly professionally qualified individual can be carried away to these extremes by whatever personal objections he has against the Liberals and particularly the President . The arguments that careful fact finders have assembled from videos and records about the validity of Governor Mitt Romney’s and, particularly, Rep. Paul Ryan’s accusations against the Obama government just do not have a chance when logic is ignored. How can someone ignore the facts that Rep. Ryan falsely claims how Obama, not the GOP Congress, failed to promptly raise the debt ceiling, an event that caused the US credit rating drop from AAA to AA; and that the President failed to implement the Simpson-Bowles recommendations, when Ryan himself walked out of the meetings and his cohorts ignored the recommendations! Ryan’s budget plan also promises not to affect the current and near future Medicare recipients , but he wants to restore the Med program excess charges (e.g wasteful Advantage plans) removed by the President before 2010, which will increase the recipients’ costs by several thousand dollars a year, the cut them again in the same manner and use the money for new tax reductions for the rich and for budget savings . The arithmetic here is totally improbable. It may well be that the Democratic Convention, held early in September, cut some of the miracles offered by Romney, citing his job creation and business experience magic, and Ryan, with his math. Ex-President Clinton, by some GOP regulars now dubbed “the best Republican we’ve had recently,” with his background in paying off the budget debt (he ended his term with a positive budget balance of over $300 B, paying down $1.7Trillion of the debt), job creation, welfare reform and bank and finance decontrol experience (alas, he signed off the Glass-Steagall Act demise and approved the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act , freeing financial institution son their pillage of the subprime bond economy, resulting in the collapses of 2008), offered credibility in recounting President Obama’s early successes , before the election of 2000 cut the ground under him.. Only the mindless could ignore his explanations of how the Obama government , through TARP and bailout, saved the credit system and automobile industry, and saved the economy from collapsing. Her also identified 4 ½ million private sector jobs added by Obama in 2 2/2 years, mostly counterbalanced because of concurrent firings of civil servants by state governments. Obama’s own acceptance speech was essentially strongly positive, and offered hope for the 2nd term, by cooperation of both party supporters, acting in national interest. More of this anon.