Category: Politics

Here’s what “sharing economy” means: People want to offer goods and services outside of the scope of regulation, let caveat emptor reign supreme.  This is not going to be a popular post.

Want to rent out a room in your house without any of the restrictions placed on hotels while dodging the taxes these legitimately run businesses have to pay?  Claim “sharing economy”.   Want to hire out you car without having to be a licensed taxi?  Yep, scream “sharing economy”.

Sounds like pure free market huh?  Just great until it is YOUR next door neighbor’s house that becomes a revolving door of strangers in their new illegal, unlicensed bed and breakfast.  “Ride sharing” services like the God foresaken Uber are all fun and money until women get raped and assualted.  Good times when your credit card gets unexpectedly nailed for what would have been an $18 cab ride during a claimed “surge”.  Cashing in on hipster ignorance seems to be Uber’s business model.  Bad actor Ashton Kutcher, with his passion for hipsters, pumped money in so he can take from his fan base during a “surge”.

Consumer safegaurds matter with regards to both physical and financial safety.  The desperately sought lack of regulation in the “sharing economy” provides neither and once these alernatives have to play by the same rules as legitimate player in the industry they will learn WHY no one did it before.  In the past people were smart enought understand they would not make money if they had to play by the rules.  We now have a generation of hipster trickies who think the rules don’t apply to them.  Please, let’s hear the word “entitled” used out of context some more.  Meanwhile let these little ego trips manifest while defying authority for profit.   Then lay down the hammer and bankrupt their grandchildren who haven’t even been born yet.   Portland and New Delhi and poised to start arresting Uber drivers and inpounding their cars.  PROCEED.

The US government and large corporations are counting on Americans growing ignorance in mathematics.  The US economy is on an unsustainable path and despite Republican hopes that it is all a “spending problem”, sorry, it is not a spending problem alone.  There are revenue and trade deficit problems as well.  Let’s look at some simpler numbers to understand the real effects of Free Trade Agreements and their effects on the US trade deficit:

When NAFTA was passed and signed by Bill Clinton in 1993, with applause and love from big business, the US had a trade SURPLUS with Mexico of 1.6 billion dollars.  We now have a trade deficit of 16.3 billion with Mexico because many companies, including Ford, sent their US manufacturing jobs to the land of cheap labor.

In 1985 we had a trade deficit with China of just over $2 million, yes million with a small m, and as of 2010 this deficit had boomed to a world history high of $283 billion.  Ya, that worked.

Free Trade Agreements have been sold by both political parties since the 90’s as “good for America”.  Yes, even Barack Obama used those words.  So he lied to because the math shows that these agreements have been horribly bad for most working Americans while enriching large corporations, the wealthy and other nations.  We handed them jobs.  How many?  Since 2001 53,000 US manufacturing facilities have closed.  It is estimated that over 20 million US jobs left the country thanks to Free Trade Agreements.  All touted by the “job creators” as good for America.

The growing trade deficit can’t be explained away by blaming the US government for too much spending.  This trade deficit is overwhelmingly the result of US consumer spending on foreign goods, not government spending.  Sorry Tea Party, no smoking gun or ammunition here for a misguided rant.  You can however blame both political parties for looking out for the corporations touting themselves as “job creators”.  Yep, they are creating jobs alright.  In Mexico, India, Bangladesh, China and even Pakistan, a country where the majority would like to go full Jihad on America and where textile exports are huge.

So the next time you here any politician talk about “brining jobs back to America” and then give another speech touting the positive virtues of “free trade” please recognize the blatant hypocrisy.   Also recognize they are no more than funded mouthpieces for those with the real control in America, large corporations.

It is sad we now live in a country where a candidate can never again run on a platform for a sustainable America.  A country where we could again produce for ourselves, staff call centers with Americans who speak English as a first language and focus on educational initiatives.  The numbers don’t add up on Free Trade.  Are we going to continue to ignore the math and listen idly while politicians continue to champion off shoring?  Or are we going to wake up and call bullshit on their corporate masters and repeal these laws that are exporting US jobs and US dollars out of the country?

I shook hands with Margret Thatcher on my second visit to Williamsburg, VA in 1997 while she was Chancellor at William and Mary.  She spoke at a commencement and I took pictures.  A few years earlier I met Dan Quayle while attending Liberty University.  That’s as much as I have to say about either encounter except that not long ago I went back to Williamsburg with Amy and we got drunk at a bar near the William and Mary campus.  It was a much more rewarding experience.

I forced myself to watch The Iron Lady when it debuted on HBO.  I was pleasantly surprised it didn’t paint Thatcher as the grand savior of England.  Champion of individual responsibility, she even proclaimed “There is no such thing as society, only self”.   Well, to me that’s just about as arrogant, short sighted and pretentious as it can get.   It also fully qualifies her to be the champion of Teabilly’s globally (which is now a concentrated minority in the southern United States.  England has grown up and moved on).  Here’s a list of Thatcher the Milk Snatcher’s achievements.   I would like to hear the conservative response to each since their admiration of self-centered evil is unwavering.  I would be willing to bet most of her US supporters know very little about her antics and comments or they might loath her as much as most Britons.

1. She publicly described Nelson Mandela as the leader of a “terrorist organization”.
2. In 1990 Thatcher was denounced by her own conservative party and ultimately forced to resign her office because she implemented a poll tax that caused rioting in the streets.
3. She embraced censorship, collusion and the documented killing of her citizens through covert operations (Sandbaggers).
4. She wrote off (killed) England’s manufacturing industry and decided she could live with 2-3 million newly unemployed, causing the highest rate of unemployment in England’s history .  I know, it will be hard to find a sympathetic conservative response to the negative effects of unemployment verses any immediate revenue gains for the private sector, benefiting very few.
5. She embraced banking and business deregulation with Reagan, coupled with Clinton’s ignorant repeal of Glass-Steagall, setting the ground work for the 2008 mortgage industry meltdown (Please, tell another lie about Barney Frank twisting the arms of bankers to make sketchy loans to unqualified borrowers.  We haven’t heard this hollow farce enough.  The Banksters made billions so even if it was true they need to send Barney some thank you letters).
6. She chose to embrace draconian military policies in Ireland, never entering negotiations with “terrorists”.  After she left office tensions between Northern Ireland and the British diminished as serious political negotiations proceeded and by 1997 the IRA cease fire became permanent.
7. Her son was found guilty of financing a military coup in New Guinea.  He was given a suspended sentence and a plane ticket home.  A sentence reserved for a select few with connections to the political aristocracy.
8. She never won an election by more than 48% of the popular vote.  This has been called a “landslide” in England but only because they are not a two party system.   So at any point at least half the population did not support her policies.  In the first election she won to become Prime Minister more than 60% of all votes went to other candidates.  Could you imagine the backlash if a US Presidential candidate won office with less than 40% of the popular vote?
9. The woman who despised social services and championed privatization was to have the 5th state sponsored funeral in England during the 20-21st centuries.  The last was Winston Churchill.  This was pre-negotiated by Thatchers representatives and the Queen.   She may even lay in state at Westminster Hall on the Briton’s Euro.  This is actually perfectly fitting because it personifies the blatant hypocrisy always on display by staunch conservatives.
10. She supported the NHS.  Yes, even a woman as conservative as Thatcher could see the benefits and necessity of national health care.  You can’t praise the woman and simultaneously denounce her policy positions.

Want to see how good England’s model of austerity under Thatcher works?  Look no further than Spain or Greece which adopted her model so their aristocracy (sorry…”job creators”) could continue to avoid paying taxes.  Millions are suffering, a tiny few are thriving.  Just the way conservatives seem to like it.

Here’s what I know as fact about the fiscal cliff negotiations: President Obama offered to limit tax increases to households earning more than $400K a year. The Democrats agreed to spending cuts, not quite as draconian as the Tea Party demanded, but they also indicated there was room for negotiation on the cuts. Speaker of the House Boehner went back to the Tea People controlling the House and tried to put together a plan that would lift the tax increase threshold to $1 million a year.   They realized that was going nowhere in their party and attempted to shift negotiations towards using the adjusted CPI for Social Security.  John McCain, now considered a moderate, said “it won’t look good if we are advocating tax increases and social security cuts”.  Again, no movement and surprise… The Tea Party obstructed.  Which part?  All of it.  They want across the board, draconian spending cuts and NO tax increases on anyone. Again, realistic, intellectual thinking at it’s finest. Meanwhile rank and file GOP conservatives can do nothing. Their party is still held hostage by the radical faction in their ranks.

Grover Norquist will be proud of these obstructionists for hold their ground on their tax pledge. The majority of Americans will not.  50% of Republicans agree with the Presidents approach to revenue according to a Dec. 7th Bloomberg poll.  Staunch Tea People will make these arguments:

1. The federal deficit is solely a spending problem.  It is not.  Every merited, non-biased, international economist on the planet has acknowledged it is a spending AND revenue problem.  This is where the GOP fails.  They do not want to acknowledge that revenue is required.  Specifically they do not want to acknowledge that revenue is required from top earners.   Their claim that revenue should come from “the 50% of Americans who pay no federal income taxes” is juvenile and hollow.  Why do people rob banks?  That’s where the money is.  Why should the wealthy pay an increased and proportionate percentage of taxes on their income (i.e. pre Bush tax rates)?  Same reason.
2. Raising taxes on millionaires will kill their ambition and discourage them from working.  Never mind it didn’t discourage them prior to the Bush cuts they now enjoy.
3. Raising taxes on the wealthy will punish successful people for being successful.  Just like they were punished via bullwhip during the Clinton Administration.
4. Raising taxes will stop “job creation”.  You know, it will put a stop to all the job creation they have embarked on during the last six years they’ve enjoyed these tax cuts.   This lie is starting to tell itself.
5. And finally they will argue “It’s Obama’s fault”.  One of the things I get the best chuckle out of is reading the GOP remarks calling Obama and obstructionist.  This is a clear indication you are reading or discussing the fiscal cliff negotiations with someone who is not paying attention and/or is loaded with bias.  Democrats have offered concessions and offered to negotiate further spending cuts.  The GOP has been able to offer nothing thanks to lack of agreement within their own ranks.   Many of those on the far right will not agree with Obama on any initiative simply for the sake of posturing and obstruction.

The worst part of this for the GOP is the comments I’m hearing from those claiming to be lifelong conservatives.  They do not recognize their own party anymore and are prepared to change their voter registration cards.  Sad they are being forced to leave their party because it has been hijacked by Libertarians who refuse to acknowledge their true political identity for the sake of compounding ideological influence.  Today the GOP as we know it will be dead as moderate Republicans will no longer have a voice.   Just like Democrats and the majority of legislation over the past six years they have been stifled by the group known as the Tea Party.  I will always refer to them as Tea People or Tea Baggers because they are in fact not a registered political party.   They did not ride in on the coat tails of true Republicans.   They tore them off and stole them.

Public protests in objection to Wall Street seems to be working well.  In Oct. the DJIA had it’s highest recorded gains during a single month in history.   Republicans and their laughable, reality TV style debates are the most popular thing on every week.  Yep, the Occupy protesters are taking action!  They took time off protesting to go buy an iPhone 4s.   That’ll learn ’em.  Greedy Apple.

Sad part is I agree with a lot of what they’re protesting but the methods have been so ineffective that Wall St. is chuckling and moving on.  Things taking place in Europe are having far more effect on the markets than the Occupy movement.   If these protestors really wanted to “take action” against greedy corporations they’d act with their wallets.  No Starbucks, cancel the smartphone contract, stay out of Wal-Mart, park the car, no cable or satellite TV, close the bank account….*gasp* real sacrifices?

But no. The protestors continue to pay the evil corporations for these invaluable products.  Americans sure are spending a lot of money to be so poor and stepped on.  So yes please Occupy… but don’t forget to pay your bills first.