Baby You Can Drive My Car

Obama’s finger wagging at Detroit is mighty curious considering that the amount of money being sought by the automakers is a mere drop in the bucket compared with the bail-out of the fat cats on Wall Street. I guess you get what you pay for. The financial sector has spent over $20 billion over the last ten years to curry favor on the Hill and in the White House, and now they’re calling in their chips.

You could also argue that the auto industry is being treated like garbage because the government blew the bank bailout badly by pouring $350 billion down the drain with no benefit on Main Street. The political reality of the moment is that somebody has to get in it in the shorts to satisfy the public's need for blood. The sheeple glued to CNN apparently buy the party line that the collapse of GM and Chrysler was the fault of the union line worker (damn those people who can afford THREE meals a day on their salary), rather than bone headed management decisions. Couple the public perception with the fact that the industry’s influence in Washington is on the wane and presto, the auto industry gets to die in place of the financial industry that caused our current problems.

Yes, the banking industry is important to the American economy, but the banking industry is not wholly composed of BofA, Citibank, et al. As long as they remain the sole focus of the discussion and the people are browbeat into believing that their rescue is absolutely necessary, it becomes clear in whose interests these banks are being saved. Hint: it ain’t ours.

Legalize It

I’m coming off hiatus to issue a stern wag of the finger at Obama’s cavalier treatment of the marijuana legalization issue in his internet town hall meeting yesterday. As anyone with ½ a brain knows, and Obama has much more than ½ a brain, the war on drugs has been a total failure. There are over 1 million Americans in jail for the victimless crime of possession of marijuana. Ending the prohibition on drugs would solve numerous problems. Crime rates would plummet (big time organized crime, small time stealing, possession), taxes go up as drugs are sold legally like liquor. The cost of the War on Drugs (billions wasted) eliminated. Prison costs cut in half. The money saved can be used to treat drug addiction as a medical condition and there would be a lot of money left over. Whole countries are now being destabilized because of drugs. Why is Obama a coward on this issue, when the solution is obvious?

Maybe because decriminalizing pot would actually be counter to his goals. Prisons create jobs. Building prisons creates jobs. Spending billions on the War on Drugs every year creates jobs. All those potheads getting locked up are just more Americans sacrificing in the name of economic recovery.

I’m starting to think that this guy is too slick for his own good. One week after the Attorney General seemed to indicate the feds would no longer raid pot clubs, DEA agents busted a medical marijuana facility in San Francisco the night before his speech. If this is the position an administration filled with intelligent thinkers is going to take on this issue, I have to question their motives. This one is a no-brainer.

Back in the USSA

The Patriot recently returned from a short vacation to Italy and has been having some trouble readjusting to the American lifestyle. Some of this may be related to lingering jet lag, but I suspect a good deal is malaise at returning to a country that seems so small minded and paranoid compared to its European neighbors. Returning to US soil through Immigration and Customs was a humiliating experience; poorly educated bureaucrats drunk with their own power, screaming at people for talking on cell phones and deigning to ask impertinent questions about what line to stand in while waiting to be evaluated for the rubber glove treatment. So it goes. We may have gotten rid of Bush, but his legacy lives on in the police state that he created and which Obama shows little interest in dismantling.

I’m not holding out Italy as some sort of paradise. Far from it. But what Italy, and the rest of “old Europe” have going for it is a lifestyle outlook that eschews consumerism in favor of simple pleasures like friends, good food, and an appreciation of leisure. Before you all write in to flame me, I am aware that Europe has issues with rigid class structures and an appalling record on dealing with immigrants. Nevertheless, the small cars, small apartments, rigidly enforced recycling program and focus on living life rather than buying crap you don’t need is something American’s should pay attention to. For better or worse we’re all going to have to start living small.

I watched Obama’s speech last night and I was not at all impressed. After a few minutes, I felt as if I was hearing the campaign rhetoric repackaged and rebranded for a slightly different audience. The speech was long on style and short on substance. With the stock market still in freefall and the "details" of our economic salvation yet to be revealed, this administration can hardly be said to have taken the bull by the horns-despite the lofty rhetoric.

Many of the ideals espoused by our Dear Leader lacked a basis in anything approaching objective reality. Obama sternly lectured that corporate executives will not be allowed to profit form the financial bailout-and yet refused to push for any strings to be attached to the money. He stated that bold action was necessary to save the country from the economic crisis and yet was short on specifics. I have a few ideas. How about bold actions like FBI forensic accountants pouring over the books of bad banks looking for fraud. How about bold action to claw back the bonuses paid to executives from the last round of TARP money? None of this is in the stimulus plan he was crowing about last night.

I see no evidence that Obama's plan to fix the banks does what the American people are demanding-hold those who gambled with the public's money accountable-or what the economy requires. His plan seems to be little more than a continuation of the philosophy of the Bush years.

While our president speaks of “necessary sacrifice”, the centerpiece of the economic recovery plan is apparently more lending and more debt. Oh, and printing more money to pay for everything. Am I alone in finding this approach to be, well, insane? Wasn’t it the accumulation of debt and laxity in lending that started us down the rabbit hole?

Meet the New Boss

I would have thought that this administration would have had a better read on the pulse of the populist rage sweeping the county, but I guess I was wrong. The new stimulus plan is a disaster and it won’t work. It also isn’t very much different from the first TARP plan, who’s funds disappeared down the rabbit hole of $40,000 commodes and corporate jets.

The architect of Tarp II is none other then Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, erstwhile head of the New York Federal Reserve and overseer of the financial meltdown. Why Obama put this man in charge of The Treasury when his short-sightedness was instrumental in causing the problem in the first place, I don’t know. The man couldn’t even be bothered to pay his own taxes, but he is rewarded by control over the entuire financial system. Nice.

As intended by Mr. Geithner, the current stimulus plan stops short of intruding too significantly into bankers’ affairs even as they start to receive corporate welfare. The $500,000 pay cap for executives at companies receiving assistance applies only to very senior executives, who will likely find a way around it anyway. The plan also will not require shareholders of companies receiving significant assistance to lose most or all of their investment. Perhaps most galling, while the administration will “urge” banks to increase lending, it will not attach any conditions to the billions of dollars in new government money. This plan is hardly different from the Bush administration’s approach of greasing the palms of the same companies and executives who peddled risky loans and investments at the heart of the crisis. How is this a change from “the failed economic policies of the last eight years?”

I think the plan is a mistake. I also think that any plan which props up home values, and extends more credit to overextended consumers is ill conceived at best. Irresponsible use of credit got us into this mess in the first place. How is extending more credit so people can resume living beyond their means going to solve this financial crisis?

This is just more protection for the wealthy and their money. I cannot understand the thought process behind a government decision that risks economic catastrophe to protect the wealthiest Americans while enraging everyone else. I think the administration will come to deeply regret this decision.

Down the Drain

The Senate on Wednesday voted to expand the economic stimulus package with a tax credit for homebuyers of up to $15,000, a provision championed by Republicans as addressing a root cause of the recession. The tax credit would give buyers 10 percent of the price of a primary residence bought within one year, up to $15,000, and is intended to stabilize plummeting home prices. This single-minded obsession government has with propping up housing values is misguided at best and seriously damaging to the economy at worst. Housing prices have to continue to fall until they are in line with incomes and the government should not do anything to screw around with the natural correction currently going on in the housing market.

The tax credit assumes that people have sufficient liquid resources for a 10-20% downpayment. The US has had a negative savings rate for the last ten years and the value of most people’s investments has been cut by ½ in the last quarter of the last year alone. I doubt too many Americans are sitting on a big wad of cash they feel would be best spent gambling on the unstable housing market right now.

The housing industry needs to downsize. There are over 2,000,000 excess housing units in the US, most of them overpriced. There was far too much construction during the boom. This not only created an excess of housing but also an excess of unsustainable jobs. Having an economy based upon building houses and selling them to each other rather than on the production of tangible goods or innovative technologies is the difference between a consumption economy and a production economy. Consumption economies are inherently unsustainable and bound to fail.

And frankly, the whole ideology of saving the economy by spending was discredited, wasn’t it? We're supposed to spend our way out of this? With what real income? With what credit? Isn't spending imaginary money what got us into this mess in the first place?

“Businesses are panicked and fighting for survival and slashing their payrolls,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “I think we’re trapped in a very adverse, self-reinforcing cycle. The downturn is intensifying, and likely to intensify further unless policy makers respond aggressively.” The Obama administration needs to stop fucking around with bipartisanship and come up with some drastic solutions to what is fast becoming a spiraling economic disaster. 598,000 jobs were lost in January of this year. A half million jobs. In one month.

Parenting

There has been a lot of discussion in the blogosphere about a “study” that was done last week by Parenting magazine which broke the startling news that married women, as a whole, are pissed at their husbands. The reason? According to author Martha Brockenborough:

"We're mad that having children has turned our lives upside down much more than theirs. We're mad that these guys, who can manage businesses or keep track of thousands of pieces of sports trivia, can be clueless when it comes to what our kids are eating and what supplies they need for school. And more than anything else, we're mad that they get more time to themselves than we do."

I am going to reserve comment for a minute on how completely banal and stereotypical such a depiction of lazy husbands and nagging wives sounds. I have to wonder though, who lives like this? Are there really still places in America where Everybody Loves Raymond is an accurate depiction of life in the suburbs? My gut instinct is that this “scientific” survey is nothing more than a reflection of the views of a cross section of the irate mommies who read Parenting magazine. In other words, white, upper middle class women who, for whatever reason, are stuck in lousy relationships with men they have little in common with.

The real problem? Our relationships are out of whack because our economic system is out of whack. If both parents are working full time the home is always one step away from chaos. Our children are not only being being raised by strangers out of necessity but they are being taught rigid social conformity as if it is some kind of civic virtue. (We sacrifice art and music in school for business and math and expect that we are going to have well-rounded kids-but that’s another posting entirely).

Our society needs to follow the European model and give more support to families with children. A fraction of that bailout money could go a long way towards paying for programs that allow more flexible work hours and options for part time work for both parents. We should demand that Obama and Congress pass laws that insist that companies allow more work-from-home options, and provide paid maternity and paternity leave. We need an economy that brings the buying power of our wages out of the 1970, and we need universal, single-payer health care, and publicly funded college, and retirement. Don’t tell me the government can’t afford it. If we can afford the banking bailout and bankroll two wars simultaneously, we can afford it.


Fuck Parenting magazine and their facile approach to a serious social problem. Instead of fomenting a war between the sexes, if they have any interest in helping parents they should use their platform as a bully pulpit to steer some of the billions of dollars going to bail out the Wall Street Fuckers to support working families.

Pull Back the Tarp

Is anyone surprised, really surprised, that the Wall Street folks took our taxpayer bailout money and gave it to their already super-wealthy friends as bonuses? I sure ain’t. You cannot give a crack addict more crack and delude yourself into thinking he’s going to share it with others. Obama was right to express his anger at the misuse of the TARP money, but that doesn’t go far enough. While there may be no legal means by which he can claw back the compensation already paid, he can certainly place stringent conditions on the dispersion of future funds. The question is whether he has the will. Have a nice week-end everyone.

The First Seven Days

I promised Erin the day of the inauguration that I would refrain from making any negative comments about Obama until at least 100 days had passed. At the time I expected this period of self-imposed silence to be a teeth-gritting, hand-wringing sort of affair. I imagined sitting in front of the keyboard, vein throbbing in my head, willing my fingers not to smash out a bitter screed of betrayal and dashed dreams. Much to my pleasant surprise, this has not been the case. Yes, I know it’s only been seven days, but the ability of a politician to keep his promises and tell the truth usually has a half-life measured in hours, not days. Consequently, there is reason to hope that the next 93 days will be as filled with fresh-baked cookies and hot chocolate as these first seven were.

Obama’s first week in office has been such a clear repudiation of the Bush years that one scarcely knows where to begin. Let’s begin with this, a partial transcript from an interview-the first of his presidency- Obama sat for with Al Arabiya:

“I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries….[t]he largest one, Indonesia. And so what I want to communicate is the fact that in all my travels throughout the Muslim world, what I've come to understand is that regardless of your faith – and America is a country of Muslims, Jews, Christians, non-believers – regardless of your faith, people all have certain common hopes and common dreams.

And my job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives. My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect. But if you look at the track record, as you say, America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that. And that I think is going to be an important task.”

Quite a sea change, isn’t it? Contrast that with the Bush administration’s paranoia and inability to draw fine distinctions between terrorists and, well, anyone else. Quite refreshing. In the same interview, the President acknowledges that the tone of a conversation is just as important as its content-something else lost on our last president:

“[T]he language we use matters. And what we need to understand is, is that there are extremist organizations – whether Muslim or any other faith in the past – that will use faith as a justification for violence. We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith's name.”

Obama has more faith in religion than I, but the point that we, as a country, will use our collective intellect to discern intent from context is something I can get behind 100%.

Year of the Earth Ox

The Times reported today on a recent Danish study which showed that people who drink coffee are at a greatly reduced risk for developing dementia later in life. Scientists found that the subjects who had reported drinking three to five cups of coffee daily were 65 percent less likely to have developed dementia, compared with those who drank two cups or less. People who drank more than five cups a day also were at reduced risk of dementia, the researchers said, but there were not enough people in this group to draw statistically significant conclusions-probably because they couldn’t sit still long enough to complete the questionnaire. The Patriot is greatly relieved that he has an excuse to increase his coffee consumption without guilt.

Welcome to the year of the Earth Ox. Generally The Ox is the sign of prosperity gained through fortitude and hard work. The Ox is unswervingly patient, tireless in his work, and capable of enduring any amount of hardship without complaint-a very Protestant Animal, in the Weberian sense. According to a Chinese astrology web site I happened across while engaging in the very non ox-like activity of shirking my own work, “Effort, commitment and duty will be the keywords for 2009. Creatively and artistically, the Year of the Ox could see influential and exciting new works and creations being announced. Environmental and green issues will also dominate the world stage with countries establishing tighter controls and regulations.” Amazing how Chinese astrology can be so issue specific. I wonder what all the little rats in Congress-whose year has ended- think about their feng shui prospects for the coming year? Perhaps they should get a reading.

The Audacity of Hope

There are endings and there are beginnings. The United States, and by extension the world, experienced both this week. The ending, of course, was the final exit of George Dubya Bush, who decamped to his suburban ranch in Texas, smarting in the wake of Obama’s devastating indictment of his legacy so eloquently framed in his inaugural speech. While Bush no doubt wished for nothing less than full imperial powers, he also must feel relieved, finally left alone to indulge his penchant for mountain biking and brush-clearing unencumbered by the unceasing demands of the Oval Office. Like a house full of graduating frat boys, he and his cowboy cabinet left one helluva mess for the rest of us to clean up. The Patriot Act, FISA, torture of prisoners and the suspension of habeus corpus, have left our Constitution tattered and faded, brittled by spending too much time immersed in the fires of ignorance and self-righteousness. Much damage was done and much needs to be undone.

The beginning of the Obama era started on Election Day and really lifted off in Washington on Tuesday. Along with everyone else on the globe I was riveted by the spectacle of an African American with a Muslim father and a strange name, take the oath of office a scant eight years after the World Trade Center collapsed into a hole in the ground, dragging with it our leaders moral compass and our collective sanity. I felt something that I haven’t felt in a long time. Hope. For those of you who have read this blog with any regularity over the last four years, you are well aware that hope is not an emotion I have usually expressed when holding forth about the capability and intent of our leaders. Nevertheless, the sheer size of the paradigm shift which is occurring here is, I think, beyond all of our capacity to fully appreciate.

Let’s face it, the perception of America around the world is of a country full of scoundrels and self-interested, naval-gazing consumers. We pull our heads out of the feeding trough just long enough to turn the channel on the television, pray to Jesus or start a war, then its back to our slop. Yet this very same group of people put a (relatively) young black man in the White House and gave him the keys to the treasury. It defies stereotype. It further defies stereotype that our new president is single-handedly restoring faith in reason and intellectualism. (The fact that concepts like “reason” and “intelligence” have taken on a pejorative air speaks volumes about how far off track we’ve gotten in the last eight years.)

I’m not expecting miracles. Obama is an establishment politician and still beholden to the interests that allowed him to accede to the seat of power. However, in his first two days in office he has suspended the Guantanamo show-trials and issued an executive order to close the prison within a year. If he keeps going in that direction we’ll be in pretty good shape in 100 days, or even eight years.I think Jefferson would be proud of us today.

Senate Intrigue

Greetings readers and happy new year! The Patriot is energized by two weeks off from working and blogging and has digested several news cycles in his never ending quest to keep you, the reader, informed about hidden agendas, abuse of the public fisc and a general disregard for the will of the people evinced by our "leaders" in Congress and the White House.

Without delay, I urge the immediate appointment of Senator Burris from Chicago and Senator Franken from Minnesota. We all know Harry Reid is a pussy-that's not news-but he has come out in favor of seating Franken so I urge you all to write to the great ballless one and urge him to continue his public support of the erstwhile comic turned legislator. For fucks sake, Franken is EXACTLY the sort of senator this country needs. He would be a great foil for the do-nothing assholes currently posing as Democrats.

As for Burris...well, Blagojevich has neither been convicted nor indicted and his (Burris) resume is rock solid. So, in the spirit of the Constitution, which does not allow any additional qualifications to be added to the job, let the man get to work. The pussy dems are hewing to the CNN party line and coming out against Blagojevich because of the public performance of a US Attorney General who has presented nothing other than politics as usual in his attempt to launch his career a la Elliott Ness.

I'm a lawyer and know full well that an accusation, unsupported by evidence, means shit. From what I hear on the new the US "attorney" has shit, by that I mean nothing, on the Illinois Governor. The whole thing sounds like a Republican plan to disrupt the government before King Obama takes office. Chicago, Whitewater, don't be fooled again! I love you all.

Ho Ho Ho

The Patriot has been very busy around the holidays and hasn’t had much time to post. I’m taking some time off from work starting today and won’t be back until early January, so I’m going to throw the blog on hiatus until then. Here’s something to tide you over:

"Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science.

The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of morons promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass. When catalysed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons."


And remember to celebrate Christmas the way the Founding Fathers did, by getting blind drunk and beating people up. In the early 1800s, Christmas was, as one historian once noted, "like a nightmarish cross between Halloween and a particularly violent, rowdy Mardi Gras."

The founding fathers would no doubt be appalled by our obsession with lights, tinsel, singing chipmunks and revolving credit card balances. In fact, the U.S. government didn't even recognize Christmas as a holiday until 1870. Prior to that, Congress routinely met and conducted business on Christmas day. It was, in fact, just another workday.

Newspapers of the 19th century are filled with disturbing accounts of what Christmas was really like: widespread rioting, sexual assault, vandalism, drunkenness, street violence and general lawlessness. Most of these "traditions" were carried over from Europe, where, dating back to the Middle Ages, Christmas had been regarded by the wealthy classes as a safety valve for releasing the peasants' pent-up frustrations.

So peasants, release your inner frustrations! You have nothing to lose but your chains.

Here We Go Again...

Obama is fast proving that when it comes to rewarding your corporate donors, no price is too steep, including larding the cabinet with industry friendly right-wing hacks. Correct me if I’m misstating, but one of the centerpieces of Obama’s campaign (“Change We Can Believe In”) was the complete restructuring of our energy policy to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil and advance new technologies for greener power. So, to accomplish this end he appoints to head the scandal plagued Department of the Interior ………Ken Salazar from Colorado? What a sell-out. Here’s the Times describing the traditional energy sector’s reaction to the appointment: “Oil and mining interests praised Mr. Salazar’s performance as a state official and as a senator, saying that he was not doctrinaire about the use of public lands. “Nothing in his record suggests he’s an ideologue,” said Luke Popovich, spokesman for the National Mining Association. “Here’s a man who understands the issues, is open-minded and can see at least two sides of an issue.” Meaning, of course, more drilling on public lands, more concessions to power companies and more coal mining. Besides his obvious bias towards industry the guy is also a buffoon. “Salazar, wearing his customary ten-gallon hat and bolo tie, said (at the announcement of his appointment) that his job entails helping the nation address climate change through a “moon shot” on energy independence……..” which he pointedly stated also required, “the continued domestic development of coal, oil and natural gas, fossil fuels” which, one might note, generate copious amounts of greenhouse gases when they are burned.

Environmentalists are feeling burned. Kieran Suckling, executive director of Center for Biological Diversity, which tracks endangered species and habitat issues described Salazar as“[A] right-of-center Democrat who often favors industry and big agriculture in battles over global warming, fuel efficiency and endangered species. He is very unlikely to bring significant change to the scandal-plagued Department of Interior. It’s a very disappointing choice for a presidency which promised visionary change.”

So far Obama has failed to appoint a single progressive to any top cabinet level position. Liberals who were expecting anything more than another Republican-lite administration are going to be very disappointed. Cynics like me are reluctantly dusting off the “I told you so” and readying its imminent deployment.

Tooting my Own Horn

For those of you who expressed skepticism that the Republicans were using the fight against the auto bail-out as a platform to destroy organized labor, I give you this, from Krugman's Op-Ed piece in the Times today:

"(Why was the plan blocked? An e-mail message circulated among Senate Republicans declared that denying the auto industry a loan was an opportunity for Republicans to “take their first shot against organized labor.”)"

And so it goes.

The Sin of Wages

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. “
-Henry Ford

I feel like I have been living in the Twilight Zone the last few days. Will someone explain to me why is it fair to demand immediate cuts in wage and benefit packages for union workers, cuts that would amount to an average of 30% of a worker’s salary, without requiring similar cuts in the wage and benefit packages of the white collar employees and management? Kind of shows you what the real agenda is. And what about all those high-cost union jobs? The reality is that all new GM employees hired in the last year initially were brought on as temps or contract workers. If they eventually are hired on full-time, they make a whopping $14 per hour on the line with no full benefits for 2 years. How much more can the UAW give? Those wages are bullshit.

The biggest waste in that company is sitting in the CEO’s office. Wagoner got a 15 million dollar bonus for running GM into the ground yet he and the politicians are pointing the finger at the UAW. Please.

From the Times letters section: “For the last couple of weeks all one hears regarding the auto industry problem is the media drumbeat, "the unions", "labor", "the contracts", as if the workers who manage to make the only living wage left in the blue collar class are responsible for the complete lack of innovation or decent product design by an industry led by air-headed millionaires. It's not the fault of people making 40 bucks and hour with, OHMYGOD, health benefits and pensions who are at fault for the fact that Americans buy Hondas and Toyotas because they last, have few repair problems and get great gas mileage.” The UAW and its members have been fighting for years for a standard of living that allowed a middle class to flourish in America. Isn't that the American dream? Isn't it what we all want?

It is so much easier to blame the worker. For whatever reason, envy, jealousy, Americans identify more with those above them in the class structure. Plus, once you start blaming the system you are confronted with the reality that the (capitalist free-market) system has failed. This is frightening. Nevertheless it is a reality that has to be faced eventually. Clearly, our government & monetary system no longer work. It's time for re-invention, Thomas Jefferson style.

Killing the UAW

14 Billion dollars is roughly the amount of money spent by the United States in Iraq in five weeks. It is also the amount the big three automakers are requesting in an effort to forestall the collapse of the US manufacturing system. While the Republicans refuse to even discuss exercising fiscal discipline in the conduct of the Iraq war, when it comes to the elimination of the jobs of workers in this country, they are more willing to take a strong stand. Their resistance to the House plan that was passed yesterday is a transparent attempt by the Republicans to kill the UAW and by extension, the larger labor movement. Congress is ok with 700 million for the big bankers, but none for the unions.

While it is true that a bail-out of the auto industry makes little long-term sense without requiring significant change from the companies, the relatively small amount of money needed to tide them over until a more far-reaching plan can be implemented won’t bust the treasury any more than it’s already busted. Remember, we just doled out billions to financial institutions that created this crisis without a single string attached. Why aren’t American workers due the same consideration as Wall Street?

Happy Friday!

You can't run a consumer-based economy without consumers. From a letter-writer to today's Times in response to the unemployment report:

"Ever since Reagan and his band of "voodoo priests" began breaking the backs of American workers, we've seen a steady decline in the incomes of the majority of Americans. This was aided and abetted by Bill Clinton (NAFTA, etc.) and a compliant Congress, both Dem and Republican-led. This decline was masked by the relative availability of credit, enabling average Americans to stave off the wolf at the door as long as they could refinance or get another credit card. But simply loosening credit won't end this crisis. Most people are way over-extended and giving them more credit is like crack to an addict. The ONLY solution to this crisis that has been building for almost four decades is the creation of good paying, dependable jobs. To paraphrase Mr. Clinton: "It's the JOBS stupid!".

Indeed. The solutions being floated down in Washington all have as their common denominator loosening up the credit markets and encouraging Americans to go deeper into hock. Who in their right mind is going to buy a house, car or even a big TV if they think they aren't going to have a job next year? And speaking of Washington, what's going on down there? Congress had no problem committing a few trillion dollars, without condition, to prop up the balance sheets of large banks who now sit on this money. Nevertheless, when three very large, possibly indispensable manufacturers representing thousands of high paying American jobs approach them for what is a drop in the bucket compared to that assistance we get to watch ridiculous show trials. The bankers already got their money. The workers are fucked. The feds already claim to have no idea where billions of the initial bailout have gone. Fun stuff. A naked grab for money without pretense of accountability.

I do not believe that even the saintly Barack Obama will be able to stem the tide of destruction wrought by the Wall Street titans, should he have the time between walking on water and curing the sick, but he may be our best hope under the current system.

Speaking of the current system, it's all been quite funny to read the comments section of the Times where irate readers are blaming Republicans or Democrats for this economic mess. The true blame, my friends, belongs at the feet of capitalism. This is how the system works. Marx knew it and you all know it too, even though you're too indoctrinated by phony propaganda to actually say it. The post WWII economic boom is a blip in our history. For most of the last 238 years the workers and middle class have scrabbled in the dirt just to survive while the rich hoard all the money. We're just getting back to our robber-baron roots.

The power elite sold us on the idea that the elimination of civil rights and a bigger domestic police force are necessary to keep us safe from radical terrorists and everyone bought it. Forgive me if I think there was a larger agenda at work. What do you think the government is going to do with all those expanded powers and robo-cops when it starts to get ugly in the streets? Dark days ahead.

Food for Thought-Pie Graphs

Remember the bailout? The one Wall Street, uh, I mean Congress, passed despite near universal opposition from the people? Here's what it cost relative to some other fairly expensive American projects of the last few centuries. Remember this visual the next time a lying sack of shit politician tells you there's no money in the budget to extend job benefits or food stamps. Courtesy of Consumerist.com

Road Trip

Michigan is coming back to Congress, hat in hand, and they’re taking the family station wagon to get there. The suddenly chastened CEO’s of the big three automakers are driving to Washington from Detroit in an effort to show that they really, really need the bail-out money that Pelosi has been withholding. This cartoonish display of faux populism is almost comical, but for the fact that all three retrenchment plans on offer essentially rely on gutting the workforce, thus sacrificing the very jobs that Congress claims to be interested in saving.

The Times reports that, “G.M., the world’s largest automaker for decades, said Tuesday that it was in such dire straits that it would deeply cut jobs, factories, brands and executive pay as part of its plea to get $12 billion in federal loans and an additional $6 billion line of credit. G.M. also promised that it could be competitive on labor costs with Toyota by 2012… G.M. (also) said it would cut more than 20 percent of its remaining jobs, shut nine factories, seek to renegotiate the terms of $66 billion in debt, and push to reopen contract talks with the United Automobile Workers to reduce labor costs.” Excuse me, but what is the point of saving the American auto industry with taxpayer money if the end result is still the loss of thousands of American jobs? Who, exactly, is benefiting by this government subsidy? Principally shareholders, I suppose. If Congress really wants to benefit the American worker they should nationalize the auto industry and eliminate the executive officers whole cloth. Needless to say, this option isn’t being considered.

For its part, the UAW isn’t taking this obvious attempt to put the nail in the coffin of organized labor quietly. “The U.A.W. can’t be the low-hanging fruit,” said UAW chairman Ron Gettlefinger. “While we’re at the table, we’re asking that others come in and sacrifice as well.” The sacrifice presumably means more than a chauffeured drive to Washington in a SUV hybrid. If I were the UAW or in Congress I’d be looking to recoup some of that $22,000,000 in compensation that Ford CEO Alan Mulally was paid last year and which he haughtily claimed entitlement to in his Congressional testimony. Seriously folks, it’s easy to make a token concession like accepting $1 in compensation for 2009 when you were paid $22 million in 2008. That money should be seized by Congress and redistributed to the line workers.

30 year veteran GM line worker Doug Hanscomb pretty much summed it up the other day when he said, “I know one thing. If I lose my pension, I bet you Rick Wagoner” — the G.M. chief executive — “and all those guys won’t lose theirs.” Clearly, here in America, we take care of the top first and let the people who do the actual work fend for themselves. It has been ever thus.

One Big Union

Next bail-out: The Auto Industry. Chief Executives of the big three flew to Washington on their private jets to beg Congress for money, a scene likened by one commentator to a man in a tuxedo and top hat stepping out of his limo at the front door of a soup kitchen. While most of the blame for Detroit’s problems can be laid square at the feet of the corporate boardrooms of GM and Ford (Chrysler is a private company) , the auto industry lobbyists have been working overtime trying to blame the UAW and other unions for the sorry state of the industry.

Clearly there are forces are lined up attempting to put the death nail in organized labor's coffin. Unfortunately, they have a lot of support among non-unionized Americans who think that the average GM line worker is a coddled relic of history. Does it ever occur to people who argue that Unions “had their place in American history but aren’t necessary now” that one of the reasons why real wages have declined over the last 25 years is a lack of worker’s ability to collectively bargain?

Why is it that the general public doesn’t demand better working conditions, fair pay, health care and pensions for all workers rather than begrudge the workers who actually have them? There is plenty of money out there. Look at CEO pay as a ratio to the average worker’s salary, for one example. Look at how much of the country’s money has been concentrated in the hands of 5% of the population for another.

The reason we somehow find it easier to blame the UAW member rather than the greedy bastard in the corner office is that we have been subjected to capitalist propaganda of the worst sort, since around the end of WWII. Think about your most closely held beliefs about the social structure of this Country. Chances are you consider yourself middle-class. You are encouraged to think this way so that the playing field appears much more level than it is. What is middle class? 25k per year in income? 50? 150?

Who do you resent more, the “poor” who take around 2% of the federal budget or the rich, whose tax breaks and financial chicanery cost the government billions more? Do you believe that income redistribution is un-American? Why? Isn’t social security income redistribution? How about we take all the money from the richest 3% of the population and hand it out to everyone equally?

Unfortunately the dirty little secret of globalization is that rather than raising all boats, the global movement of capitol is creating a race to the bottom for wages. The auto industries that are now coming to Congress with hat in hand have exported millions of jobs overseas in the last 20 years while at the same time lobbying against labor protections for the remainder of their workforce. All this at a time when GM and Ford were making record profits.

What good will bailing out Detroit do if no one has the means to buy more vehicles? If the big 3 get any money at all it should come with hefty strings attached, including a complete re-tooling of the manufacturing process to plug-in hybrids, a strengthening of the UAW and a cap on executive pay at 8:1 the average line worker. If that is too draconian for Congress to swallow, why not raise the cafe standards to 50 mph and let the industry sort it out on its own?

My personal belief is that the current capitalist system is unsustainable without massive government regulation-and not by this current crop of lobbyists currently posing as legislators. If things start to get really bad over the next year or two we could face the specter of an enraged citizenry dragging the rich out of their fancy homes and redistributing the wealth at the point of a gun.