dagblog - Comments for "EIGHT THINGS TO TELL A REPUBLICAN"

Oh, and as for Virginia Fox?

SleepinJeezus — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 20:04:48 +0000

In reply to Excellent piece, David, as

Oh, and as for Virginia Fox? My thought is that they keep her around only to help Michelle Bachmann and Louis Gohmert look plausibly sane. LOL!

Excellent piece, David, as

SleepinJeezus — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:07:38 +0000

In reply to EIGHT THINGS TO TELL A REPUBLICAN

Excellent piece, David, as usual. I haven't yet followed your link to read the expanded arguments, but instead thought I'd first offer a little "Wisconsin perspective" here.

Real estate developer Terrence Wall offers a pretty scary glimpse into the "other side" of key elements of this economic argument you lay out so plainly and logically. Wall was a candidate for U. S. Senate in Wisconsin this last go-around. Perhaps amazingly (relative to this exploration of his business "attitude") he was perceived to be the mainstream GOP candidate in the race. Tea Party candidate Ron Johnson ultimately won the primary and took the Senate seat from Russ Feingold.

"Wisconsin is Open for Business" Wall crows, citing Governor Walker's campaign slogan. And in the article at the link he lays out just how depraved a concept this is.

"When the government interfered in the marketplace, causing the recession, I stopped new development and cut our head count in half."

Never mind the "government caused the recession" nonsense. Wall insists that it's taxes and the other costs of doing business that prevent him from hiring:

Now that the equation in this state has changed... job creators like me have regained enough confidence to dip our development toe back into the shark-infested waters.

Wall, a decidedly Free Market Libertarian, ignores the irony that implies it is ultimately the state that controls his business decisions instead of the market. He would have us believe that he will not build anything if he has to "share" profits with the taxman - regardless of how steep the profits to be realized. Likewise, he would build things even if there were no one to purchase them, if only government would get the hell out of the way and let him proceed full steam ahead.

He ignores the plain fact that - for better or worse - ours is a consumer economy. But Wall knows this to be true. He and his fellow business compatriots ain't so stupid as to buy the drivel they sell as tea party talking points. Quite simply, they wouldn't be in business for very long if they didn't constantly calculate the consumer appetitie for whatever product or service they offer.

So what gives here? Not surprisingly, what Wall offers here is nothing more than a "your money or your life" hostage taking that isn't particularly well presented.

"It's a privileged class, these businesses," Wall would tell us. They are entitled to wealthfare programs and subsidies and unlimited authority to do as they please. In exchange, they create jobs. Be nice to them, and they will shower us with jobs and everyone's happy. Do anything to piss them off, however, and strap yourself in for a recession. It's just that simple.

It's ludicrous, to be sure, but somehow it resonates with tea party types who are fearful about the future subsequent to the frequent recent failures of thirty years of supply-side economics. In the absence of any Keynesian alternative being actively promoted and defended, they turn to more-of-the-same as the only game in town. And Wall (and the Koch Bros., and Club for Growth, etc.) is right there to lay it out for them.

The consequences of supporting such an entitled business class are about to be keenly realized here in Wisconsin, and an unfettered Republican control of our state government offers little opportunity to stand in the way.

Wisconsin is now about to embark on a revisit of the "mining wars" that have occurred in our northern territory over the last number of decades. The recent messaging and maneuvering by the Walker Administration and its media allies indicate that effort is afoot to set aside environmental and virtually all other social and even sustainable economic concerns under the guise of "job creation" and "economic development." It's the same tired arguments that have been made before but that have been rebuffed as people understand that it offers a beggar's choice. Whatever temporary jobs are to be gained are more than offset by permanent degradations in the environment AND the local economy.

But it is "jobs" that these "job creators" will hold hostage with demands that we give away our natural resources in exchange. And we are at a record level of unemployment with no real prospects for improvement, even as the state eliminates thousands more family-supporting jobs in the interest of providing increased "incentives" for the corporations.

We are "Open for Business," after all. And in Wall's World and the world of the FitzWalkers, we are told that business reigns supreme.

"Wisconsin is Open for Business!" the FitzWalkers tell us. And the business execs like Wall and the Koch Bros and others will follow that up with their demand: "Prove it once and for all! Bend over, grab your ankles, and tell me that you love me."

This is going to hurt.

Why are people so obsessed

emerson the fourth — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 01:24:14 +0000

In reply to Please, if you are going to

Why are people so obsessed with Al Gore? I work with some people who can't go a full day without their needing to rant about Mr. Gore. I really don't quite understand what you see in him. He kind of annoys me. NASA retired the shuttle fleet. Many people have lost their jobs but nowhere near hundreds of thousands. There weren't hundreds of thousands working for NASA to be let go to begin with. I would reread the official report from NASA. You sound like you may have gotten a biased analysis of the report. It is best to read the actual report. What is a "real working American"? I work a 50+ hour job, plus working most of my extra time to start a small business. Do I qualify? If not, what about if I take up ranting about Al on a daily basis? Would I qualify then?

Great stuff. And a

Dan Kervick — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 00:51:23 +0000

In reply to EIGHT THINGS TO TELL A REPUBLICAN

Great stuff. And a refreshing change from elections, polls and personality.

Please, if you are going to

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 22:36:08 +0000

In reply to EIGHT THINGS TO TELL A REPUBLICAN

Please, if you are going to issue talking points and be serious please be serious, you talking points only go to prove that who ever uses these as such only show ignorance and fultility of judgment, for anyone of mature thinking can shot huge holes into each statement issued,

1. right to worry about EVERY form of debt, one cannot borrow

out of debt. , forget that concept

2.most Americans are under pressure financially because they were coehersed into borrowing entirely too much for their homes, in a market driven to extremes by the no-down, government backed loans that were made available to anyone with a name. These loans, driving sales out of the realm of reality, made working people have to compete with who ever walked in the door. Unfair, and unjust. Now, those with-out investment besides their name, if even real, walk away. Those who have entire family fortune invested in homes are underwater by 3-% + margins, hopelessly stuck. The government bails out, or pays the same banks who instigated this mess, along with fannie mae and freddy mac, with the same future earnings of the struggling to keep alive workers, not the welfare people. so, absolutely wrong point again.

3.The nations economy under Bush 2 was amazing, huge growth, everyone working, enough so that even the dems banked on those working and making so much they could somehow divest the known amount of underscored mortgages on them, point again totaly false. Only when the dems secured both houses of congress did the c=economy begin to tank, which reveals how the dem party is not afraid to ruin others who work for a living to secure their personal elitist desires.

4. shameful words. The markets are run by huge corperations who channel imeensable amounts of money. The dems although they always deny, are of course the ones behind such firms. The stories of haliburton running the oil fields and of cheney under their control make Texan;s laugh out loud, for all know that the longtime yellow dog dem family of ladybird johnson owns haliburton and schlumberger and Brown and Root, the worlds largest by far construction companies. So there, learn before you speak.

5. Actually, the underhanded formation of an entire market trading in green carbon credits was the brainchild of the most famous crooks in the world, enron. VP gore, worth 1.2 million after his tenure as VP, now worth over 1 billion, all in invested monies to secure his supporters rights to run this imagination built market. Now that NASA has refused to sign on and submit as did the EPA when defunded by obama until they put the false laughable Co2 reports and findings, NASA refused. And even when the space shuttle etc were defunded, laying off 100's of 1000's they still filed formal studies totally disproving the man made global warming conspiracy. So there.....it was all a front to get money from the working people under false pretense of impending doom, in otherwords , the biggest worldwide scam in human history. Gore should be stripped of all monies and sent to live next to madoff forever.

6. the outsource in 90% of American jobs was a direct response to taxation, over regulation lawsuits etc all brought upon manufacturers by those from the democrat party, I cannot believe you even mentioned this idea, childishly laughable, much like obama's crayon written budget. He has failed in every manner except for fooling people into believing in him, as a black, not his policies, most do not know what those are, for like his budget, they are nowhere to be found in print.

You Sir, are a child in the world of adults who have finally given up any hope of you redemption. Yop and your kind will soon be found wishing you have never participated in these egregious attacks upon the real working Americans in this country. Good Bye

Republicans elected The

NCD — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 16:17:10 +0000

In reply to I never thought I'd say this,

Republicans elected The Decider because they figured it was easiest if he did the deciding, anyway, Republican leadership follows the path set down to them by The Almighty....8 things, facts or body counts notwithstanding.

It is time for us to

Flavius — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 06:16:52 +0000

In reply to EIGHT THINGS TO TELL A REPUBLICAN

It is time for us to recapture control of our economic destiny from the Wall Street moguls and overpaid CEOs and otherwise liberal economists * who took us into our contemporary distress.

*Flavius

As I've written here too many times , Keynes n the 30s recanted his life time support for Free Trade.. At first half heartedly

"the virtue of tariffs is-they do the trick"

but ultimately -in a set piece Dublin lecture -he completely abandoned Free Trade, summarizing his position

"Let goods be homespun".

If the savings from off shoring could somehow be shared by society , perhaps it would make sense. But in our deeply laizee faire country there's no chance of that happening. And in our continent- sized country no need . The last trade round should have been , the last.From now on we should reverse the direction of our trade policy and move as far as we can as fast as we can away from at least this aspect of Globalization

Hey Dahg Would you also like

Resistance — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 04:58:44 +0000

In reply to I don't mean to criticize,

Hey Dahg

Would you also like him to use phonetics, so you won't have to work so hard?

apologies all round to the

coatesd — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 00:32:00 +0000

In reply to I don't mean to criticize,

apologies all round to the Decider. The original essay, posted on my website and Huffington Post, had eight numbered points. For some reason this morning when I posted on dagblog, as I always do, the technology beat me and the numbers disappeared. Again, apologies

David

Dear Peter I entirely agree.

coatesd — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 00:30:00 +0000

In reply to Only a stronger manufacturing

Dear Peter

I entirely agree. Just tough to do in a brief posting. In Making the Progressive Case, there is a whole chapter on Managed Trade. Without that, no chance of breaking the race to the bottom. But neither side of the political class currently concede that: so the argument against free trade ends up in the hands of people like Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan. A progressive case for Managed Trade is essential in my view

Best wishes

David