Thursday, April 16, 2009

Sound and Fury

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
          - William Shakespeare (Macbeth)

Ok.  I’m going to dispense with the jokes and the innuendo associated with today’s “tea party” protests (or as coined by FOX News, “teabagging”).  As I’ve been reading about the goings on in various cities, which depending on who you ask number from a few to a few hundred, I’m left with just one question.  What the hell was the point of all of this?


 

First of all, it was impossible to find any real information regarding locations or numbers because the protests were so disorganized, which when you look at it is quite convenient since it allows organizers (and FOX News) to make up whatever number they want with impunity.  I did manage to find what seemed like the “Official Teabagging Site” http://taxdayteaparty.com/ (don’t worry, your kids can look at it with you) which seemed to rely mostly on bloggers for its various teabagging headcounts.  Looking over the numbers and the locations I’m inclined to dismiss any estimate over 5,000 for logistical reasons (and that’s being generous).  But if I was to average all of the locations on the site, of which I would estimate at about 500, and put the number of people at each location at maybe 500 each (again, being very generous), that number would still be mercilessly dwarfed by the number of people who watched (in person and on TV) then candidate Barack Obama’s 2008 DNC acceptance speech (250,000 vs 38 million according to Neilson).  But putting aside real or fake numbers for now, I’m still left with the question of why.  If this was only about taxes, then I could muster a modicum of respect for the protesters.  After all, who wants to pay more taxes?  But from reading the various blogs on this, I get the feeling that this goes way beyond that issue.  These people are protesting everything from socialism to gun control to abortion rights to Obama’s birth certificate (which as I’ve pointed out is irrelevant), to Obama himself.  In other words, this was far less a protest than it was a gathering of disgruntled McCain (and Hillary) supporter in an Obama hate-fest.  There was no real theme to the protests, no logical message, and worst of all, no plan.  It was simply a chaotic mish-mosh of right-wing axes to grind, spoon fed by rightie talk radio and FOX News.  If all they wanted to do was to get together for some 1984-esque “two minutes of hate”, then why all of the trouble to make it seem like more? 

 

The disturbing answer to all of this is that this wasn’t for the protesters at all.  Oh, the protesters may think it’s all about them, which is exactly what Limbaugh, Gingrich, Dick Armey, FOX News, and the corporate bigwigs with their off-shore tax havens want them to think.  But the truth is, the people providing the bananas for these trained monkeys who still claim membership in what is left of the GOP are merely trying to cover their own asses, and using their constituents to do it.  These are the people, Limbaugh, FOX News, et al, who really stand to lose from Obama’s tax proposals.  They and anyone else making more than $250k/yr.  These people, not the protesters, are the real “victims”.  They are the shepherds with the dog in this pasture.  The protesters are merely the sheep being herded to the slaughter by politicians, corporate interests, and well paid right-wing talking heads looking to protect their interest, and further pad their own bank accounts.  The sad fact of the matter is that these “teabagging” protests are yet another example of how the GOP plays upon their base’s fear, insecurity, lack of sophistication, and misguided sense of “patriotism” to achieve its own ends.  To the Republican party, their constituents are merely tools, a means to a goal.  “Country First” to them means manipulating basically good, innocent, well meaning people into working against their own best interests for the good of the party, and for individual politicians.  Call it the desperation of a losing party, or the psychological makeup of a group of individuals, but one thing is clear.  Despite what the so-called “organizers” will tell you, this is not a “grass-roots” movement at all, but a pathetic attempt by a political party at regaining relevance at the expense of it’s most vulnerable.  Essentially, the tea parties were merely a tale told by idiots.  Full of sound and fury signifying absolutely nothing.
 

HAPPY TEABAGGING!

 

Obama’s Speech Draws 38 Million

http://blogs.suntimes.com/conventions/2008/08/ap_reports_obama_dnc_speech_ou.html

Posted by jawillie at 03:32:07 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Right-Wing Analysis

As most of you know who visit here, I’m an avid reader and commenter of the First Read blogs.  On occasion I see comments that express a point that I wish to make so much better than I could possibly make it, that I have to include it here.  The following is a commentary from a username Joe Rand from Dallas, TX.  It pretty much sums up everything I’ve come to realize about the right-wing since the election of Barack Obama as President.
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I know it simply causes what is left of the primordial brains of the right-wing nutjobs to explode in their Neanderthal shaped heads every time the phenomenal outpouring of love and respect that President Barack Obama commands, both in America and around the world, is displayed for all of humanity to see. In their lunacy, the raging and rabid Obamahaters go “foaming at the mouth” crazy each time he is shown receiving the well deserved affection and devotion that any rational citizen, or group of citizens, would give an intelligent, articulate, attractive, confident, courageous, spectacularly insightful and boldly visionary world leader. Especially one whose strategic leadership skills are urgently needed in this desperate hour to rectify and repair the massive destruction perpetrated upon our nation and the entire world by the Cheney/Bush dictatorship during the nightmare of the last 8 years.

Because of their self delusion, and the fanatical, irrational hatred that they harbor against our beloved President, they are unable to understand the grateful adulation of our nation, and yes, of the whole earth, bestowed upon President Obama as our liberator from the long, dark night of the Cheney/Bush Reich. They bitterly resent the fact that he was handed an electoral mandate by an inspired and uplifted population to lead our nation out of the darkness spawned from ultra-conservative extremism and into the dawn of a dramatically new day, and was elected by the largest number of voters ever recorded in US presidential history. To their everlasting horror, and the horror of their political and philosophical bed partners (white supremacists, skinheads, militias and KKK groups) he even won several of their precious and unwinnable “Red” States, including the capital and cradle of the Confederacy, Virginia. It is still inconceivable to them that Virginia, the native land and ancestral home of southern hero General Robert E. Lee and other slave owning Confederate leaders, would cast its statewide vote for a Black man as President of the United States. Like an unreachable and unremovable fish bone, the unmitigated fact of a “President Barack Hussein Obama” presiding over this country, and exercising full authority as it’s Commander-in-Chief sticks perpetually in their bigoted craw.

They remain self deluded and deceived regarding the dangerous and corrosively destructive nature of the previous regime, and the effect of the draconian Republican tyranny that oppressed our country, and which sought to dismantle our constitution, destroy our environment, and stamp out the very spirit of our democracy. They fail to understand that that is why people by the thousands, across America and around the world, spontaneously poured into the streets in an unleashing of extraordinary and incredible joy on that unforgettable and momentous night as it was announced that “Senator” Obama had won the election. People from every walk of life joined in sublime rejoicing, and literally danced in the streets. To this very day, those scenes of national exuberance and global unity baffles them. Clearly, they do not understand the extent to which the vast majority of the nation and the world loathed and detested Bush and his fascist policies of arrogance and ignorance. Policies which ultimately:

- killed almost 5,000 young US service men and women, and irreparably maimed and wounded over 70,000 others in a 6 year war and occupation conducted with astonishing stupidity under Rumsfeld’s direction, and founded upon presidential lies, fraud and deception;

- overstressed our armed forces to the point of breaking, and drastically reduced our military’s capacity to respond effectively to other national or global emergencies; to say nothing of the shameful and unconscionable mistreatment of injured war veterans and their families, who paid, and will continue to pay for the rest of their lives, an unthinkable price to indulge the warmongering folly of the Cheny/Bush/Rumsfeld triumvirate;

- murdered over 200,000 innocent Iraqi civilians under the false guise of “liberation” but which was, in fact, a misguided lunge at American hegemony in the Middle-East;

- abandoned a major American city (New Orleans) to a watery grave, and sentenced, by criminal dereliction, other metropolitan areas to urban rot, blight, and decay;

- polluted our air, contaminated our soil, poisoned our water, and eliminated essential oversight mechanisms which protected our food sources and kept our medications safe for consumption;

- raped the US Constitution in their zealous and incessant efforts to corrupt and circumvent justice, suppress patriotic voices of dissent and to illegally spy on and imprison innocent US citizens;

- spoiled our precious national natural resources and land preserves and handed them whole-scale over to the oil magnates and robber barons of industrial mega-companies (many of whom were actually allowed to dictate and write national policy and legislation  during secret meetings under Cheny’s sinister and Machiavellian oversight);

- sold the US Treasury into the greedy, thieving, overcharging  hands of Halliburton, Blackwater and other defense and security contractors who exploited their ongoing and financially reciprocal relationships with Cheney and Rumsfeld;

- woefully neglected our crumbling national infrastructure i.e. roads, highways, bridges, electronic grid, dams, waterways, etc.; and carried out an insidious and systematic campaign to eradicate the American farmer and the American family-owned farm;

- stained the soul and conscious of America with the foul and pathologically sadistic sexual abuses of Abu Ghraib, where prisoners were sodomized, raped, genitally mutilated, tortured and even  murdered; with many of the same Nazi-like practices being duplicated at the Guantanamo facility and other illegal secret prisons operated by the CIA in foreign countries;

- betrayed centuries-old alliances with friendly nations and international bodies, ignored binding treaties with others, and banished diplomacy from the halls of American foreign policy with an “invade first” mentality;

- fomented intense and visceral hatred of our government among moderate Muslims and peace loving people of other faiths and cultures, who had traditionally been our friends, or at least, not our enemies; thereby creating far more individual terrorists and breeding grounds for terrorism where young men and women are susceptible to recruitment than heretofore known, leading to mass global destabilization and far less homeland and border security than we have ever had before in our history as a nation;

- eliminated America’s moral standing and leadership in the world as the preeminent model of a free society and the global guardian and defender of freedom;

- savagely eradicated the practice of true science and the free expression of scientific and medical theory from our nation’s government, in a barbaric effort to promulgate and maintain adherence to a primitive, restrictive and religiously tailored political ideology;

- wiped out, with blinding speed and in squandering fashion, a trillion dollar surplus inherited from President Clinton’s monumentally prosperous and successful administration; and which, when coupled with the massive and unsustainable tax cuts for the wealthiest elite of the population, and the trillion-plus Iraqi war bill, served to create the largest deficits on record; saddling our nation with withering debt, and forcing the next President to make difficult choices and take drastic measures in order to jumpstart the economy and rebuild our prosperity;

- expedited the wholesale collapse of the American economy, and brought the world economic system to the brink of utter destruction; escalating a loss of global wealth so epic, so unimaginable and so indefinable that it is almost of biblical proportions.

Yes, this was the well documented and indisputable policy agenda of the Cheney/Bush regime. Yet, the nutjobs remain unwilling to admit the deeply personal and intrinsic effect those policies had upon our daily lives and the lives of every living being existing on the planet for almost an entire decade. They remain unwilling to accept the fact that the Cheney/Bush era was, by far, the most regressive and repressive period of modern American history – eclipsing even the Nixon saga, and that the Cheney/Bush legacy is one of abject failure and ruin. The havoc wrought by the previous administration upon this country threatened the very fiber of our existence as a functioning democracy, and will take generations from which to recover. They remain unaware that there is no doubt or equivocation regarding this matter, that George W. Bush will be judged, both currently and in the annals of history, as the worst and most destructive president to ever sit in the Oval Office, and during his tenure he presided over the systemic decline, dismantling and diminishment of the nation; almost eradicating in 8 years the glory and majesty and illumination of American nationhood that took over 200 years to build. It was an unspeakable tragedy, which even now boggles the mind.

So it is with great dismay that the right-wing nutjobs watch our glorious President, as he delights and enraptures the world and captures the hopeful imagination of millions in this country and around the globe. They will never understand, that as the undisputed leader of the free world, and the most beloved, powerful and popular Head of State of any nation on the planet, he can confidently afford to be generous and magnanimous toward the royal ruler of an archaic desert nation, and politely, with great grace, style, class, and sophisticated elegance simply acknowledge his presence and age with a respectful bow of greeting. A small and charitable gesture extended to a longstanding ally (who Bush would often actually hold hands with and kiss, and with whom he maintains extensive family financial holdings) which, by the way, conceded nothing in American standing or honor.  

Our bitter and sorrowful right-wing friends have no understanding of international protocol among world leaders, and therefore are unaware that everyone in that room where President Obama greeted the king of Saudi Arabia, knew for certain, without any need for outside display or show, who was the most powerful leader present, as well as whose unpretentious presence commanded every inch of space there. They deferred to him with the deep respect usually accorded an Elder Statesman, and treated him with the affection reserved for a beloved and favored family member. Every person present in that room had no doubt that President Obama was the “Alpha Leader” among them. That is why they all desperately and constantly sought to be in his shadow. Why, even the Prime Minister of India, the world’s largest democracy, asked for our President’s autograph. True leadership – that embodiment of certain innate qualities, which are sometimes indescribable and intangible, but you know it when you see it. They all saw it, and they all felt it…all of them.

The whole world saw it, and felt it as well – the majestic power of integrity and honesty, compassion and confidence, combined with an unparalleled intellect and a compiling vision of hope for the future, not just for the rich and wealthy, but for the common man as well. We all were watching, and we all saw it, and felt it, although for most of us it was not our first time being touched by the strength and beauty of his leadership, as our President stood with great dignity before the world and spoke eloquently on our behalf. It was our leader on that stage, our representative, our collective voice charting a course for a future of world peace and prosperity. It seems like a lifetime since an American President was treated with such respect and adoration by Heads of State and foreign citizens alike. Crowds of thousands cheered and thronged him throughout his trip. Bush’s last act on the international stage involved having shoes thrown at his head. After 8 long years of presidential embarrassment and derision, we finally have a Commander-in-Chief we can beam with pride for. There’ll be no shoe throwing under President Obama’s watch.

Yes, the right-wingers are simply unhinged. They rant and rage about the “so called” lack of accomplishments of our President during his trip, and stupidly suggest that the tour was a failure. Of course, their blithering ignorance beggars belief, in that they have not even a minimal understanding of how international diplomacy and consensus building works. Nor do they have the faintest clue about the judicious and strategic use of national power and influence. How could they, when those concepts did not ever exist in US foreign policy during the Cheney/Bush reign of terror? If it were not so sad, it would be laughable. Apparently they are so void of understanding that they fail to realize this was a reconnection and rebuilding trip. It was foundational in nature, one whose purpose was to redefine and reestablish American interests and goals, and to reposition our role from that of despised confrontational aggressor to that of unifier and collaborative leader. The Cheney/Bush effect on the world was so destructively toxic and pervasive that it will take more that one overseas visit to divest its poison from the global community’s consciousness. President Obama knew this trip would be just the beginning of the long, hard process of reestablishing America’s place of prominence at the table of nations, and that it will require time to heal the wounds and repair the extensive damage wrought upon our image and relationships with the rest of the world. But, clearly he was up to the challenge, and being well prepared for the task at hand he was able to plant the vital seeds necessary to reap a harvest of long-term international strategic cooperation and mutual understanding. After the 8 year Cheney/Bush debacle in foreign affairs, even our remarkably talented and charming President can’t recover it all in one tour. But the work will continue under his very capable hands.

No, these are unhappy days for the right-wing nutjobs. They just don’t get it. Nor will they ever. But it’s too late, the deal is done and for the next 8 years they might as well make themselves content. Or establish a colony on the moon because, whether they accept it or not, the facts are inescapable and will remain the same. Let’s review a few.

1. AMERICA’S YOUNG WOMEN AND MEN IN UNIFORM ADORE THEIR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. They can’t get enough of him. You see it in their eyes and in their body language. You see it in the way they connect with him and reach out to him; the way they cheer and lovingly greet him when he enters the room. That type of heartfelt and genuine response cannot be staged or manufactured. Not from American military personnel it can’t. Anyone who says or believes that our brave and courageous service men and women, who have faced implacable enemies head-on and stared death in the eye, can be coerced into showing some sort of fake, bogus, or phony emotion for a man they don’t respect or admire dishonors the very spirit and soul of our military. It soils and sullies the very uniform that they wear. It is a shameful reproach to even imply such a thing about our heroic boys and girls on the front line, and any coward who makes false statements like that hates the military and could never be considered a true supporter of our troop.  He represents their best hope and they know it. Deep inside themselves, they instinctively know he cares for them and their families, and will spare no expense to protect and provide for them. They know he values their lives above all else, and will only put them in harm’s way when there is no other recourse. They also know the defense and security of America is his first priority as President, and that he will not hesitate to destroy any enemy who endangers the nation or its resources.

2. THE NATION ADORES THEIR PRESIDENT. Nothing the Limbaugh-led republican party has been able to say about him, or do to him, including their weird conspiracy theories regarding his birthplace and their false and malicious labels of socialism, has had any affect on his overwhelming and consistent national approval ratings. His numbers are higher for this period of his term than any other president in recorded history…and they are still climbing. Even the republican party’s ridiculous attempt in the US Congress to collectively reject his Stimulus Plan by voting en masse against it didn’t affect the measure in which the American pubic supported both the Plan and the President. I know this drives the nutjobs insane, but that’s just the way it is. The republicans had 8 years to rule America (longer if you count the years they controlled the Congress during President Clinton’s administration), and they brought it to devastating ruin. We don’t want them in charge now, and we don’t want their dangerous and insidious ideas for American life implemented anymore. We’ve had enough of their malicious and hypocritical control. At this stage of the game, any half-cocked notion or whimsical plan of the President is better and more effective any day, than the entire republican platform and conservative national agenda. The nation trusts our President, and believes in him, and is willing to follow his example of confidence, patience, service and sacrifice. In just a short number of days he has proven himself to be the most energetic worker to ever occupy the White House. His achievements during this very limited period of time have been nothing less than stunning. He has accomplished more for the redevelopment and betterment of the country in less than 100 days, than Cheney/Bush ever accomplished, or could ever have hoped to accomplish in the entirety of their ill-fated term. So rest assured, by the help of God, and with the support and assistance of the American people, he will prevail. He will recover our decimated economy, he will lead us out of the Cheney/Bush quagmire in the Middle-East, and he’ll provide for our security and keep America safe. And help him, we will.  We’ll pay more taxes if we have to, work longer and harder for less, and reach out to our fellow citizens with a helping hand, or what ever else it takes to rebuild America again, and restore the wonder that was the realization of the American dream.

3. HE WILL NOT FAIL. I know they don’t want to believe that. The thought of a successful Obama presidency is the right-wing nutjob’s greatest fear and most terrifying nightmare. It’s what makes them sh-t their pants and piss on themselves. Well, they’d better get an industrial supply of “Depends” because it’s destined to happen. All the ill wishing in the world will not change what is about to occur in America in the coming days. Go ahead and fall out, have hissy fits, go into convulsions, foam at the mouth, pull your hair out, bite your fingernails down to the quick, rip your clothes off, scream till your tonsils fall out, commit ritual mutilation, or hold your breath until you turn blue or black in the face…there can even be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, it will avail you nothing. Barack Obama is still the duly elected President of this nation and his success will be astounding. Get used to it. It matters not what treasonous pranks you pull, your seditious plans, plots and schemes. Have all the “Tea Parties” you want. Conspire against him at your pleasure. Sadly for you, it will be an exercise in futility. His success is guaranteed. And, by the way, have you noticed how his beautiful, young, vivacious, and stylish wife (an ivy league educated leader in her own right) has found her calling as she works by his side, and has captivated the world with her strength, compassion and intelligence? And, aren’t those two precious daughters of theirs, Sasha and Malia, just simply angels? So lovely, intelligent, well mannered and behaved? What a classically gorgeous American family they make, and America just loves it! President Obama is among the smartest men to ever occupy the White House, and has ingeniously engaged some of the brightest minds in America for his executive team. He is renowned as one of the most profound and effective orators of our day. A devout Christian, he humbly seeks divine guidance in prayer, and demonstrates in his daily life the multi-faith principles of love and compassion for your fellow man, justice and equity for all, mercy for the repentant, and protection for the most vulnerable among us. The fact that he is the first and only African American to be elected president only enhances his legacy. His success is an already a predetermined fact, and the full manifestation of it is only a matter of time.

I know just how you feel, ye olde nutjobs and Obamahaters. Millions of us felt just the same way about your misbegotten hero, Bush. We have been there where you are, and quite frankly, we know it’s a hellava tree to climb. Your feelings of pain, despair, impotence and helplessness improperly channeled can really get to you. So, take it easy, chill out. Step back from the edge. Breath. Yeah, I know, the most powerful man on the planet is a Black man…. A Democrat…. A Community Organizer…. The President. Maybe if you say it out loud you’ll feel better. Come on…say it with me now…. “President Obama”…..try it again, take a deep breath and say, “President Obama”….one more time, “President Obama”. There you go. Isn’t that better? Now get over it. Because Barack Hussein Obama II, the 44th President of the United States of America will go down in history as one of the greatest and most admired and beloved presidents of all time. Go ahead, don’t believe it if you wish, it won’t change a thing. His election to the presidency was once thought to be totally impossible as well. Millions said it would not – could not happen. By the grace of God, Obama proved all the naysayers wrong. He will do it again.

joe rand, dallas, texas(Sent Friday, April 10, 2009 6:06 PM)

Posted by jawillie at 23:46:23 | Permalink | Comments (6)

Tea for Two

Once again the rabid right has taken on a talking-point buzzword without knowing what it means.  A couple of blogs ago I wrote definitions of the usual buzzwords; socialism, communism, fascism, dictatorship.  Now it appears I must once again enlighten my fellow Americans on the right to the true meaning of another of their buzzwords.  This one was coined by none other than the Fake Noise Crapper (FOX News), as a description of the protests that have broken out against President Obama’s policies.  The nature of the protests began, innocently enough, with angry constituents sending teabags to their representatives in Washington (and to the White House).  This is supposed to somehow recreate the famous Boston Tea Party where the colonists protested the improper taxes levied on them by King George III.  This protest is against…well, pretty much everything Obama does, from the stimulus to the budget to Michelle’s dress to probably his choice of the family dog.  As usual, they’re not for anything, they have no specific agenda, no ideas, just a rising chorus of NO to vent their anger at being in the minority opinion.  The culmination of these protests is a mass gathering in (according to the various disfunctional groups organizing the thing) over 400 cities across the country, complete with Republican guest speakers.  The act of participating in these protests, as coined by FOX News through the auspices of such liminaries as Glenn Beck, Sean Hanity, and the other voices in the rightie echo chamber, is know as teabagging.

Now I’ll give you a second to stop snickering.  Obviously these folks got their naming ideas from Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies.  Since the people participating in these teabaggings <more snickering> probably have no idea what the term really means, I suppose I should help them out to avoid further embarrassment.

From Wikipedia:

Teabagging is a slang term for the act of a man placing his testicles in the mouth[1] or on or around the face (including the top of the head) of another person, often in a repeated in-and-out motion as in irrumatio. The practice vaguely resembles dipping a tea bag into a cup of tea.[2][3]

Teabagging is also an erotic activity used within the context of BDSM and male dominance, with a dominant man teabagging his submissive partner, either a woman or a man, as one variation of facesitting and/or as a means of inflicting erotic humiliation.

Posted by jawillie at 19:48:42 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Monday, April 6, 2009

Weekend Rebuttal

Every so often as I browse the First Read comments I like to issue challenges to some of the righties.  One such challenge I issued this past Friday was to a user ‘no-joe-no-bo’, who is a constant Obama critic (more like ranter).  To wit, I challenged him to present a better idea for fixing the economy that the one that Obama has.  He’s taken me up on it, and I must admit his response has given me some food for thought.  Of course, I have a rebuttal for him, but since I’ve been attending a conference all weekend (you know, the one for the secret lefty cabal led by Keith Olbermann) and missing the First Read comment deadline, I haven’t been able to post it.  So I decided to post my rebuttal here.  First his initial response, and then my rebuttal.

jawillie-I tried to respnd to you on the same site, but I may have been timed out.

I will take you up on your challenge.  First, understand that the federal government uses the tax code to encourage activity it deems desirable, and to discourage activity inappropriate for the times.  For example, when the savings rate was considered too low, and inflation was a problem, the first $400 of interest earned was exempt from taxation.  When inflation was under controll, and the government wanted people to spend, it eliminated the exemption.

Economies grow because of economic activity fed by the multiplier effect.  In the
US, the multiplier across all sectors is 2-for every dollar spent, 2 are generated in the economy.  How?  Think about the grocery store.  Each item you buy goes to pay the checkers, stockers, bookkeepers, truck drivers who delivered them, manufacturers who made them-etc.

Construction has a multiplier of 12.  Therefore, the way to start to jumpstart the economy is through construction.  While housing sales were up last month, that was of existing stock, fed by bargain hunters, (I know, I was one).  New construction is what is needed, so what I would propose would be that, for two years, all closing costs be deductable as tax credits-across the board.  I would also make home interest 100% deductable for the same period of time, and then revisit the issue to see where we were at the end of that period.

By the way, government construction does not have the same multiplier, but a lower one of 4.  Why?  Well, the formula is complicated, but it takes into account the fact that taxation is also subject to the multiplier, or its reverse-for eery dollar taxed, two are removed from the economy.  It considers the losss ofproductivity from increased traffic on construction of existing roads, and also the cost of corruption.  yes, indeed, that is factored into every government contract.  You’d think if we knew enough to account for it,m we could stop it-but I’m not a lawyer.

This is where I would start to jumpstart the economy.  I’d do more, but I doubt that the moderators would give me the space I’d need to spell it all out.

 

no joe, no bo, nj (Sent Friday, April 03, 2009 4:06 PM)

My response.

 

Joe,

 

I’ve been trying to get this in all weekend.  I’m at a conference in Alexandria, VA (Communist County according to Joe McCain) so I barely have time to answer this.  What I’d like to say is that your post DID give me some food for though.  In principle I agree with you.  However, I differ on the timing of new construction. 

 

You have to keep in mind that corporations and business aren’t doing much expansion these days, and the housing market is still in the tank because people just aren’t buying.  A sudden glut of construction at this point runs the risk of another bubble, which is why we’re in the situation we’re in now.  The bottom line is that people need money to spend.  Money from a reliable, steady income.  Infrastructure spending creates jobs.  Roads will always need repair, powerlines will always need replacement, water mains break, piplines need maintenance.  Even if these jobs are temporary or contracted, they create income.  That spurs consumer spending, which spurs demand, which spurs manufacturing, all of which creates more jobs (permanent) and spurs the kind of construction you propose.  That will also allow for the tax-credits and deductables (I wouldn’t go so far as 100%).

 

So I’ll agree that new construction can improve construction, there has to be a need for it first.  I’d be happy to go into detail on this, but I’m pressed for time at the moment.  But I will say that I prefer this level of debate rather than the usual shouting matches that take place here.  It’s amazing how you can see just how much you have in common with people when you’re not screaming at each other.

 

Posted by jawillie at 23:29:49 | Permalink | Comments (9)